The Big 4 and government purchasing guidelines to deter tax avoidance
Posted by Christie Malry on February 15, 2013 at 7:30 am
we know that the Big 4 accountants have all filed DOTAS disclosures. Some of those schemes have failed. Will this block them, and many big forms of lawyers as well, from government contracts?
Of course it won't. Because the guidelines refer to the tax compliance of the supplier only.
The Big 4 may or may not have helped other companies avoid tax in ways that breach DOTAS. Whether they have is irrelevant for the purposes of the government's supplier guidelines. Because the Big 4 partnerships themselves are fully tax compliant. Therefore this guidance doesn't apply to them.
[Incidentally, the tax affairs of the Big 4 are very simple. Their profits are taxed in the hands of the partners, not in the partnership]
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The only slight complication I'd add to the above is that all of them employ their staff through a service company to arbitrage the CT/IT rates on the margin imputed on staff costs, but that's about it - partners are warned, I understand, in no uncertain terms about the reputational risk to the Firm that signing up to certain schemes presents.