How Uber, Facebook used PwC schemes to beat tax crackdown

afr.com:

US tech giants Uber and Facebook set up new company structures to sidestep Australia’s multinational tax avoidance law using PwC advice, days before the legislation came into effect in January 2016.

Uber transferred its Australian business to three general partnerships registered in the Netherlands, in a structure devised by its then tax adviser PwC to bypass the new law.

The structures are revealed in filings with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which also show the companies dumped the schemes, as part of negotiated confidential settlements with the Tax Office. Evelyn Barota

The speed with which Uber, Facebook and other clients were able to restructure to sidestep the new tax avoidance law in time for the January 1 start shocked the Tax Office.

It also reflected the head start that PwC gained before the legislation was unveiled in September 2015, thanks to confidential information obtained by its head of international tax, Peter Collins.

The Uber structure closely resembled a PwC scheme which the Tax Office discovered in a September 2016 meeting with the firm and an unnamed client. This discovery triggered alarm at the Tax Office, which issued sweeping discovery orders against all big four firms to name clients that had restructured to avoid the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law.

The Tax Office notices to produce eventually revealed that PwC had used confidential Treasury information obtained by former partner Mr Collins to design workarounds of the law to market to new clients.

“Uber received advice from PwC Australia on how to comply with its obligations under the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law after the draft legislation was released,” an Uber spokesman told The Australian Financial Review.

“We