‘Confidential’: Partners at leading firm getting paid insane amounts
The eye-watering pay packets at one of the nation’s leading professional services firms have been released to the public.
The eye-watering pay packets at one of the nation’s leading professional services firms have been released to the public. Documents reveal that dozens of partners take home over $1.1 million each year – despite requests for the information to remain “confidential”.
The Senate finance committee has published how much partners are paid at Deloitte, after it was requested as part of an inquiry into the PwC tax avoidance scandal.
In a letter sent to the committee on August 7, Deloitte’s CEO Adam Powick and chairman Tom Imbesi provided the pay details and requested the “commercially sensitive information” be kept confidential.
“The disclosure of remuneration information publicly would likely cause Deloitte and its partners detriment and could potentially undermine competition,” the letter read.
“On this basis, the information provided to the Committee as part of this letter is provided on a confidential basis and on an understanding that this information remains confidential.”
However, the request was seemingly denied, with publicly released remuneration information giving insight how much the firm’s 537 equity partners take home each year.
According to the document, 19 of the firm’s equity partners earn more than $1.43 million a year.
Another 33 receive between $1.15 million to $1.43 million each year, while 168 receive between $785,000 to $1.15 million.
The remaining 317 earn between $500,000 to $785,000.
Overall, the firm’s equity partners make an average pay of $810,000 each year, while their 521 non-equity partners are paid an average of $370,000.
The committee also released the earnings of EY partners, which was also requested to be kept confidential.
Their letter, dated August 1, shows the earnings broken up into quintiles, which “represents the average earnings of each 20 per cent of the partnership by number of partners”.
The first quintile of EY partners earn between $0 to $649,000 while the top quintile make between $1.36 million to $2.8 million.
The inquiry is being held in response to the PwC scandal, in which it was revealed some partners of the consulting firm allegedly misused confidential federal government information to help large multinational companies cut their tax bills.
The disclosed pay details come after Mr Imbesi told a public hearing in July Deloitte couldn’t disclose how many employees earn more than $1 million per year due to commercial sensitivities.
“So, providing the number of people in million-dollar bands is something you’re not comfortable giving to the Australian public given that last year you took $712 million of public money?” Senator Barbara Pocock asked.
After some back-and-forth, CEO Adam Powick later told the hearing the average base salary of a Deloitte partner was between $500,000 and $600,000.
During the hearing, Senator Deborah O’Neill asked Mr Powick about his own salary, publicly reported at $3.5 million.
“Are you really worth seven times the salary of the Australian Prime Minister?” Senator O’Neill asked.
“No,” Mr Powick said.
“I happen to deeply recognise that I’m incredibly privileged to earn what I do for what I do.”
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