PwC has been accused of misleading the Senate during its tax leak scandal inquiry.

At the Senate inquiry, former PwC CEO Luke Sayers admitted he was working on a plan around 2017 to 2019 that involved selling part of PwC's consulting business.

This plan aimed to spin off PwC's management consulting arms in Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia. Although the deal reached an estimated valuation of $1 billion, it never materialised.

However, during the inquiry, Senators Deborah O'Neill and Barbara Pocock highlighted a contradiction in PwC's stance. 

They presented a 2019 submission from PwC to a Senate inquiry in which PwC opposed “structurally separating” auditing and consulting businesses, arguing that it would negatively affect their operations.
Yet, it appears that PwC was actively planning such a separation at the time, raising concerns about the veracity of the information provided to the Senate.

The current Senate inquiry was launched after PwC's former head of international tax, Peter-John Collins, illicitly shared confidential tax information to assist multinational companies in evading taxes in Australia. 

The scandal led to PwC's urgent sale of its government consulting business to Allegro Funds for just $1 to protect its staff.

Current PwC CEO Kevin Burrowes, appearing before the Senate, attributed the firm's problems to “failure of leadership” by former CEOs Luke Sayers and Tom Seymour, who led the company until early this year. 

This assessment aligns with the findings of an internal review conducted by former Telstra CEO Ziggy Switkowski, which identified significant cultural issues within PwC.

Mr Sayers, in his defence, blamed “bad actor tax partners” within the firm that “made the wrong choices”, insisting the leak scandal was not a reflection of his leadership. 

He also denied any knowledge of the issues until they became public earlier this year.

The Senate inquiry's final report on the management and integrity of consulting services is expected to be released by November 30.