The US Internal Revenue Service is auditing the accounts of Big Four Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, focusing on the sale of its non-auditing businesses in recent years.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the IRS is examining the sale of its management-consulting practice to International Business Machines Corp (IBM) for about $3.5bn  (£1.85bn) as well as the disposal of its actuary and corporate-valuation arms in 2002 and 2003.

‘We expect our current IRS exam to be satisfactorily concluded before the end of the calendar year,’ a PwC spokesman told the WSJ.