Good morning,The blowtorch remains focused on PwC with Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill calling on the embattled accounting firm PwC Australia to provide more detail of the misconduct which had seen eight partners, including former chief executive Tom Seymour, pushed out of the firm in the wake of the tax leaks scandal. The Labor Senator, who chairs the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services which has been investigating the scandal, said more questions needed to be answered by the firm following the announcement of the forced exits, which also included former chairman Peter Van Dongen. Senator O’Neill said PwC also needed to detail what action it was taking to hold the PwC Australia leadership team to account, including former chief executive Luke Sayers. Meanwhile, struggling business owners face a “horror show” over the coming months as the taxman circles and operating costs spiral, warn insolvency experts. It comes as indicative data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission shows a 17 per cent spike to 5520 in company collapses over the year to June 30, 2023. Revive Financial head of insolvency Jarvis Archer said that increasingly, small business owners are being forced to get second jobs to prop up their business or pay their rent or mortgage. And as the RBA meets to consider a further rate hike it should think about active quantitative tightening. Leading financial market strategist, Tim Baker from Deutsche Bank, says the central bank should consider selling government bonds to “spread the pain” of its monetary policy tightening to the 30 per cent of households that own their home outright. “By selling these bonds, long-end yields could rise, and weigh on equities and house prices,” he says. |