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Former EY Partner Calls Newly-Released Tax Salary Data “Disturbingly Low”

An EY Tax staff with no money

Australian Financial Review said this morning they are in possession of tax salary data that EY is providing to some of its teams internally:

Staff in EY’s tax division have learnt for the first time the salary ranges paid for graduates, consultants, managers and directors as part of a pay transparency drive at the big four firm.

A former EY partner said the rates were “disturbingly low”. However, recruiters felt the rates were competitive and generally above market.

The firm’s partners told staff graduates in the tax division would earn from $64,000 to $66,500 each year; consultants from $69,000; senior consultants from $86,000; managers from $116,000; senior managers from $154,000; and directors from $210,000, according to multiple EY sources.

This data — part of an overall transparency drive at Big 4 firms in Australia that includes PwC totally disclosing staff and partner pay and Deloitte publishing stats on how many misconduct reports they investigated last fiscal year — is not meant for external consumption. Your guess is as good as ours as to why.

While EY partners are disclosing some salary band information to teams and individuals, they do not want to disclose the rates to the market because they do not think it is “in the best interests of our people”, a spokeswoman said.

“For transparency, EY is now sharing salary band information within teams and at an individual level,” she said.

“Salary bands vary depending on service line, geography, specialisation and role. We do not believe sharing salary band information more publicly is relevant or in the best interests of our people.”

AFR gives us a reason why EY may not want this data out in the wild: “The minimum pay for EY graduates is less than PwC graduates, but the minimum pay and experience required overlap significantly beyond this rank,” they wrote. An EY staff member who did not want to be named for obvious reasons said the rates were not competitive with the market and felt the firm was slower to promote staff than rival big four firms.  The difference was most noticeable for EY staff who had spent their whole career at the firm, they said. Remember these numbers are in Aussie money:

a chart comparing EY and PwC pay rates in Australia
Minimum pay rates at EY and PwC for selected divisions via AFR

Recruiters who spoke to AFR about the salary data disagree with the former partner who said it’s low. EY Tax pay rates are “quite high in comparison to a large majority of the market,” said Thomas Patroni, a director at Edward Jacobs Recruitment. Are we counting Macca’s cashiers as accounting professionals in the market?

From $64k to over $210k: here’s what EY pays its tax division [Australian Financial Review]

4 thoughts on “Former EY Partner Calls Newly-Released Tax Salary Data “Disturbingly Low”

  1. NYC sanitation currently pays $85k + benefits and pension, no college or CPA is required. Fixed schedule, no work emails, projects.

    NYC garbage cleaning <<< BIG4

  2. Looking at the chart, EY pays more at every salary band than PwC except at the new hires less than 1 yr experience. The whole article is completely backwards. Look at the chart starting from the nottonand go up instead of top down. I’m an environmental engineer in Kansas, so I really don’t have an interest or even care. But I know how to read a chart and the whole premise of the article is just false.

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