‘Disgraceful breach of trust’: how PwC, one of the world’s biggest accountancy firms, became mired in a tax scandal

Australian politicians, armed with 144 pages of internal PwC correspondence, are now pouring scorn on a company that is central to the provision of government services. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

In the depths of winter 2015, an Australian tax specialist adopted the language of a spy. “For your eyes only,” he wrote, while emailing government secrets to colleagues who would later use them to help clients and make millions of dollars.

Nearly eight years later, that email and dozens more like it have engulfed PwC in a scandal that has forced resignations, possible criminal and corruption investigations, invited furious rebuke and accusations of insider trading, and threatened future government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.