Following the acquisition, details of which were not disclosed, Ellis will be renamed PwC Tax Information Reporting, operating from PwC's London office. Ellis prepares multi-jurisdictional tax reporting and has recently developed the capability to report information to tax authorities, as required under the new automatic exchange of information regimes - FATCA and the OECD's Common Reporting Standard (CRS). PwC said the investment will therefore allow it to “dramatically” reduce the workload for financial institutions. 

“Our software can process huge amounts of customer data in a secure way, for example it can generate up to 10,000 client tax reports per hour, tailored to the rules of different jurisdictions,” said Stephen Camm, tax partner at PwC.

The FATCA legislation, which came into force in July last year to combat US tax evasion, requires all foreign financial institutions to report information on financial accounts held by American citizens to the US Internal Revenue Service. It has proven controversial with several banks blaming it for making it too expensive to serve American expats.