Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is accused
of promoting "tax avoidance on an industrial scale" in a scathing report
by MPs.
The "big four" accountancy firm is said to have helped hundreds of companies cut tax bills by setting up arrangements to divert their profits via Luxembourg.
The report found that the "complex strategies and contrived structures" PwC provided "bear all the characteristics of a mass-marketed tax avoidance scheme".
MPs investigated following the leak of hundreds of documents last November that appeared to show how the firm secured deals with Luxembourg tax authorities for 343 multinational companies between 2002 and 2010.
'Industrial scale'
Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, said: "We believe that PwC's activities represent nothing short of the promotion of tax avoidance on an industrial scale.
"The effect has been to reduce the amount of corporation tax that some multinational companies pay in the countries in which they make their profits."
PwC said that it disagreed with the conclusions of the report, but said it needed "to do more to explain the positive role we play in the tax system and in helping businesses to operate successfully"....MORE
