Seymour seems to be operating on the absurd premise that leaking confidential government information is a sin but designing, marketing, sharing or being party to a tax avoidance scheme based on that confidential information is totally fine.

Remember, PwC initially set out to perpetrate a grand lie by omission: that there was only one bad apple, disgraced former partner Peter Collins. When that falsehood was publicly contradicted by the Tax Practitioners Board, Seymour minimised this as merely “a perception problem” and insisted “there [were] no findings that 30 [PwC] people got the [leaked] information”. This week, after emails were released proving that 53 PwC people were party to correspondence about the leak, Seymour changed his story. Now, he says that “six to eight” PwC partners were “directly involved” in the leak but have all left the firm, and that another “30 to 40” received the emails but weren’t aware they dealt in leaked information.

None of this works logically. PwC’s tax practice developed innovative tax avoidance schemes before the design or timing of multinational anti-avoidance laws was public. PwC then engaged in highly co-ordinated international marketing of those schemes. When treasurer Joe Hockey unveiled the legislation with the 2015 budget, PwC sent out pitches for its scheme to circumvent the legislation to US clients on budget night!