How Accounting Giants Craft Favorable Tax Rules From Inside Government
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/business/accounting-firms-tax-loopholes-government.html
For six years, Audrey Ellis and Adam Feuerstein worked together at PwC, the giant accounting firm, helping the worlds biggest companies avoid taxes.
In mid-2018, one of Mr. Feuersteins clients, an influential association of real estate companies, was trying to persuade government officials that its members should qualify for a new federal tax break. Mr. Feuerstein knew just the person to turn to for help. Ms. Ellis had recently joined the Treasury Department, and she was drafting the rules for this very deduction.
That summer, Ms. Ellis met with Mr. Feuerstein and his clients lobbyists. The next week, the Treasury granted their wish a decision potentially worth billions of dollars to PwCs clients.
About a year later, Ms. Ellis returned to PwC, where she was immediately promoted to partner. She and Mr. Feuerstein now work together advising large companies on how to exploit wrinkles in the tax regulations that Ms. Ellis helped write. Ms. Elliss case detailed in public records and by people with direct knowledge of her work at the Treasury and at PwC is no outlier.
The largest U.S. accounting firms have perfected a remarkably effective behind-the-scenes system to promote their interests in Washington. Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with current and former government and industry officials.