Consultants like PwC are loyal to profit, not the public. Governments should cut back on using them

By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

The PwC scandal reveals appalling behaviour by an individual consultant and his company that provided consulting services to the federal government.

PwC reportedly used its insider knowledge to advise multinational firms on how to continue to avoid tax when the legislation it advised on came into operation.

Confidentiality agreements were broken and the central objective of the contracted advice – to address tax avoidance by multinational companies – was directly subverted.

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