The leaders of PwC, KPMG, EY and Deloitte are all in the spotlight as they’re facing a Senate inquiry into the professional services sector.
👉 Background: The PwC partner leaking sensitive government tax information has been discussed at length over the past couple of months.
👉 What happened: But now, as a result of this leak, the leaders of PwC, KPMG, EY and Deloitte are all in the spotlight as they’re facing a Senate inquiry into the professional services sector.
👉 What else: As part of this inquiry, a former partner at KPMG and whistleblower has said that the big four used the "bastardisation of the partnership model". And this "bastardisation" was used to create a "risk-free, tax-free, and consequence-free model." Yikesss.
💡Partnership vs company... same same, but very different. When you think of a company, you think of the big fish like Telstra or Mars. There is a CEO, a board and shareholders.
💡But in partnerships, the company is owned by a group of people who are called "partners". Sometimes, there is a partnership for the audit division, the consulting division and accounting division - all of which are connected by the single brand name.
💡In a partnership, each partner is personally liable for the business' debts. But what's most interesting is the idea that a partnership structure has less accountability than a company... or so it's been alleged more recently.
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