PwC Awards Programme
Welcome to the PwC Awards
Building Public Trust
The purpose of the awards is to promote transparency and better disclosure in tax reporting by listed entities with the purpose of building public trust, and to recognise the leading companies in this regard. These awards have been sponsored by PwC in the UK for the past nine years and have been instrumental in increasing the standards of corporate tax reporting in that country. We see the South African edition of these awards, which have been running for the past two years, as having the potential to make a similar contribution to improving the standards of tax reporting by business, with the benefits that flow from this.
Much has been written about tax transparency recently and there’s no sign that the debate will subside. There has never been a greater need for businesses to build trust around their tax affairs than now.
The purpose of the awards is to promote transparency and better disclosure in tax reporting by listed entities with the purpose of building public trust, and to recognise the leading companies in this regard. These awards have been sponsored by PwC in the UK for the past nine years and have been instrumental in increasing the standards of corporate tax reporting in that country. We see the South African edition of these awards, which have been running for the past two years, as having the potential to make a similar contribution to improving the standards of tax reporting by business, with the benefits that flow from this.
Awards process
The companies that were assessed were the top 100 JSE listed companies by market capitalisation as at 31 December 2015. Entry for the awards is automatic and all companies were assessed in compiling the shortlists for consideration by the judging panel.
A tax transparency framework has been developed and the performance of each company was quantitatively assessed against the framework. The framework consists of mandatory tax disclosure requirements (IFRS and King Code), voluntary tax disclosure requirements based on mandatory requirements applicable in other countries and voluntary disclosure suggestions and best practice.
The data used to evaluate the extent of tax reporting against the framework was sourced from Annual Reports, Corporate Social Responsibility Reports, Annual Financial Statements and Integrated Reports for the top 100 JSE listed companies from the McGregor BFA Database and companies’ websites for the 2015 financial period as well as other relevant reports from companies’ websites related to the company’s tax approach.
Each of the company’s reports was evaluated independently by two members of the research team at the University of Pretoria. The two members of the research team compared their separate evaluations and then mutually agreed on the final evaluation of a specific company. In addition, the coding for the top ten companies by market capitalisation was reviewed by an independent team of reviewers. Where any material inconsistencies in the coding were identified, these were addressed and corrected in the final results. PwC was not involved in the scoring and was not able to influence it in any way.
A five-point Likert scale was used for most criteria in order to include an element of qualitative assessment. For each of the items on the tax transparency framework, a company was allocated points if it addressed the specific item as part of its reporting. For those items for which a Likert scale was used, the points allocated ranged from one to five depending on the assessment of the quality of the reporting relating thereto.
Award winners
Category: Multinational companies
Winner: MTN Group
Highly commended: Anglogold Ashanti Ltd
Category: Domestic companies
Winner: Sasol Ltd
Highly commended: Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd