Terms of Business

Applicable law

Our terms of business are governed by, and should be construed in accordance with English law. Each party agrees that the courts of England will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning any engagement letter and any matter arising from it. Each party irrevocably waives any right to object to any action being brought in those Courts, to claim that the action has been brought in an inappropriate forum, or to claim that those Courts do not have jurisdiction.

Scope of services

We will issue you with an engagement letter which will list the work you have instructed us to carry out. If we agree to carry out additional services for you, we will provide you with a new or amended engagement letter. Only the services which are listed in the attached schedules on the engagement letter are included within the scope of our instructions. If there is additional work that you wish us to carry out which is not listed in the schedule(s), please let us know and we will discuss with you whether they can be included in the scope of our work.

Recurring compliance work

1. We will prepare your self-assessment tax returns together with any supplementary pages required from the information and explanations that you provide to us. After obtaining your approval and signature, we will submit your returns to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
2. We will calculate your income tax, national insurance contributions (NIC) and any capital gains tax liabilities and tell you how much you should pay and when. We will advise on the interest, penalty and surcharge implications if tax or NIC is paid late.

Ad hoc and advisory work

Where you have instructed us to do so, we will also provide such other taxation, ad hoc and advisory services as may be agreed between us from time to time. These may be the subject of a separate engagement letter at our option. Where appropriate we will discuss and agree an additional fee for such work when it is commissioned by you. Examples of such work include:

• Advising on ad hoc transactions, preparing additional supplementary pages to your tax return and calculating any related liabilities;
• Dealing with any enquiry opened into your tax return by HMRC;
• Preparing any amended returns which may be required and corresponding with HMRC as necessary;
• Advising on the rules relating to and assisting with VAT registration.

Where specialist advice is required on occasions we may need to seek this from or refer you to appropriate specialists.

Tax credits

If we agree to advise you on tax credits we will issue a separate letter or schedule to cover this area. Tax credits are, in effect, a social security benefit. Your entitlement or otherwise will depend not only on your own circumstances but also those of your household and we would require all relevant information to advise in this regard.

Changes in the law

We will not accept responsibility if you act on advice given by us on an earlier occasion without first confirming with us that the advice is still valid in the light of any change in the law or your circumstances. We will accept no liability for losses arising from changes in the law or the interpretation thereof that are first published after the date on which the advice is given.

Your responsibilities

You are legally responsible for:

• Ensuring that your self-assessment tax returns are correct and complete;
• Filing any returns by the due date;
• Making payment of tax on time.

Failure to do this may lead to automatic penalties, surcharges and/or interest charges.

Taxpayers who sign their returns cannot delegate this legal responsibility to others. You agree to check that returns that we have prepared for you are complete before you approve and sign them.

To enable us to carry out our work you agree:

• That all returns are to be made on the basis of full disclosure of all sources of income, charges, allowances and capital transactions;
• To provide full information necessary for dealing with your affairs: we will rely on the information and documents being true, correct and complete and will not audit the information or those documents;
• To authorise us to approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we consider necessary to deal with your affairs;
• To provide us with information in sufficient time for your tax return to be completed and submitted by the due date.

You will keep us informed of material changes in your circumstances that could affect your tax liability. If you are unsure whether the change is material or not please let us know so that we can assess its significance.

Client identification

As with other professional services firms, we are required to identify our clients for the purposes of the UK anti-money laundering legislation. We may request from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases.

Client money

We may from time to time hold money on your behalf. Such money will be held in trust in a client bank account, which is segregated from the firm’s funds.

Commissions and other benefits

In some circumstances we may receive commissions or other benefits for introductions to other professionals or in respect of transactions which we arrange for you. Where this happens we will notify you in writing of the amount and terms of payment and receipt of any such commissions or benefits.

Complaints

We are committed to providing you with a high quality service that is both efficient and effective. However, should there be any cause for complaint in relation to any aspect of our service please contact Chris Saunders (Tel: 07818 565 305). We agree to look into any complaint carefully and promptly and do everything reasonable to put it right. If you are still not satisfied you can refer your complaint to our professional body, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Confidentiality

Communication between us is confidential and we shall take all reasonable steps to keep confidential your information except where we are required to disclose it by law, by regulatory bodies, by our insurers or as part of an external peer review. Unless we are authorised by you to disclose information on your behalf this undertaking will apply during and after this engagement.

We may, on occasions, subcontract work on your affairs to other tax or accounting professionals. The subcontractors will be bound by our client confidentiality terms.

We reserve the right, for the purpose of promotional activity, training or for similar business purpose, to mention that you are a client. As stated above we will not disclose any confidential information.

Conflicts of interest

We will inform you if we become aware of any conflict of interest in our relationship with you or in our relationship with you and another client. We have safeguards that can be implemented to protect the interests of different clients if a conflict arises. Where conflicts are identified which cannot be managed in a way that protects your interests then we regret that we will be unable to provide further services. If this arises, we will inform you promptly.

If there is a conflict of interest that is capable of being addressed successfully by the adoption of suitable safeguards to protect your interests then we will adopt those safeguards. Where possible this will be done on the basis of your informed consent. We reserve the right to act for other clients whose interests are not the same as or are adverse to yours subject of course to the obligations of confidentiality referred to above.

Data Protection

The following definitions shall apply:

‘client personal data’ means any personal data provided to us by you, or on your behalf, for the purpose of providing our services to you, pursuant to our engagement letter with you;

‘data protection legislation’ means all applicable privacy and data protection legislation and regulations including PECR, the GDPR and any applicable national laws, regulations and secondary legislation in the UK relating to the processing of personal data and the privacy of electronic communications, as amended, replaced or updated from time to time;

‘controller’, ‘data subject’, ‘personal data’, and ‘process’ shall have the meanings given to them in the data protection legislation;

‘GDPR’ means the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679); and

‘PECR’ means the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2426/2003).

We shall each be considered an independent data controller in relation to the client personal data. Each of us will comply with all requirements and obligations applicable to us under the data protection legislation in respect of the client personal data.

You shall only disclose client personal data to us where:
 

(i) you have provided the necessary information to the relevant data subjects regarding its use (and you may use or refer to our privacy notice available at https://www.mypersonaltaxassistant.co.uk/privacy-policy for this purpose);

(ii) you have a lawful basis upon which to do so, which, in the absence of any other lawful basis, shall be with the relevant data subject’s consent; and

(iii) you have complied with the necessary requirements under the data protection legislation to enable you to do so.

Should you require any further details regarding our treatment of personal data, please contact our data protection officer.

We shall only process the client personal data:
 

(i) in order to provide our services to you and perform any other obligations in accordance with our engagement with you;
 

(ii) in order to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations; and
 

(iii) where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests and those interests are not overridden by the data subjects’ own privacy rights. Our privacy notice (available at https://www.mypersonaltaxassistant.co.uk/privacy-policy) contains further details as to how we may process client personal data.]

For the purpose of providing our services to you, pursuant to our engagement letter, we may disclose the client personal data to our regulatory bodies or other third parties (for example, our professional advisors or service providers). We will only disclose client personal data to a third party (including a third party outside of the EEA) provided that the transfer is undertaken in compliance with the data protection legislation.

We shall maintain commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures, including administrative, physical and technical safeguards, to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing of the client personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, the client personal data.

In respect of the client personal data, provided that we are legally permitted to do so, we shall promptly notify you in the event that:
 

(a) we receive a request, complaint or any adverse correspondence from or on behalf of a relevant data subject, to exercise their data subject rights under the data protection legislation or in respect of our processing of their personal data;
 

(b) we are served with an information, enforcement or assessment notice (or any similar notices), or receive any other material communication in respect of our processing of the client personal data from a supervisory authority as defined in the data protection legislation (for example in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Officer); or
 

(c) we reasonably believe that there has been any incident which resulted in the accidental or unauthorised access to, or destruction, loss, unauthorised disclosure or alteration of, the client personal data.

Upon the reasonable request of the other, we shall each co-operate with the other and take such reasonable commercial steps or provide such information as is necessary to enable each of us to comply with the data protection legislation in respect of the services provided to you in accordance with our engagement letter with you in relation to those services.

Disengagement

Should we resign or be requested to resign we will normally issue a disengagement letter to ensure that our respective responsibilities are clear.

Electronic and other communication

Unless you instruct us otherwise we may, where appropriate, communicate with you and with third parties via email or by other electronic means. The recipient is responsible for virus checking emails and any attachments.

With electronic communication there is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection or interception by third parties. We use virus-scanning software to reduce the risk of viruses and similar damaging items being transmitted through emails or electronic storage devices. However electronic communication is not totally secure and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused by viruses nor for communications which are corrupted or altered after despatch. Nor can we accept any liability for problems or accidental errors relating to this means of communication especially in relation to commercially sensitive material. These are risks you must agree to bear in return for greater efficiency and lower costs. If you do not wish to accept these risks please let us know and we will communicate by paper mail, other than where electronic submission is mandatory.

Any communication by us with you sent through the postal system is deemed to arrive at your postal address two working days after the day that the document was sent.

Fees and payment terms

We have agreed a fixed fee for the preparation of your tax return which will be shown on our request for information. Where we have to make changes to a tax return, through no fault of our own, we reserve the right to make an additional charge of £30. Any other additional work will be charged at our normal charge-out rates.

It is not our practice to identify fixed fees for more than a year ahead as such fee quotes need to be reviewed in the light of events.  If it becomes apparent to us, due to unforeseen circumstances, that a fee quote is inadequate, we reserve the right to notify you of a revised figure or range and to seek your agreement thereto.

In some cases, you may be entitled to assistance with your professional fees, particularly in relation to any investigation into your tax affairs by HMRC.  Assistance may be provided through insurance policies you hold or via membership of a professional or trade body.  You will need to advise us of any such insurance cover that you have. You will remain liable for our fees regardless of whether all or part are liable to be paid by your insurers.

Our invoices will be due for payment upon presentation and we reserve the right to withhold the filing of a return or other information until our fee has been settled. 

We reserve the right to charge interest on late paid invoices at the rate of 5% above bank base rates under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.  We also reserve the right to suspend our services or to cease to act for you on giving written notice if payment of any fees is unduly delayed.  We intend to exercise these rights only where it is fair and reasonable to do so.

If you do not accept that an invoiced fee is fair and reasonable you must notify us within 21 days of receipt, failing which you will be deemed to have accepted that payment is due.

If our invoice remains outstanding for more than 21 days we reserve the right to charge additional fees of £25 per telephone call, email or other correspondence in connection with pursuing the outstanding debt.

Implementation

We will only assist with implementation of our advice if specifically instructed and agreed in writing.

Intellectual property rights

We will retain all copyright in any document prepared by us during the course of carrying out the engagement save where the law specifically provides otherwise.

Interpretation

If any provision of the engagement letter or enclosed schedules is held to be void, then that provision will be deemed not to form part of the contract and the remainder of the agreement shall be interpreted as if such provision had never been inserted.

In the event of any conflict between these terms of business and the engagement letter or appendices, the relevant provision in the engagement letter or schedules will take precedence.

Internal disputes within a client

If we become aware of a dispute between the parties who own or are in some way involved in the ownership and management of the business, it should be noted that our client is the business and we would not provide information or services to one party without the express knowledge and permission of all parties.  Unless otherwise agreed by all parties we will continue to supply information to the normal place of business for the attention of the proprietors.  If conflicting advice, information or instructions are received from different principals in the business we will refer the matter back to the partnership and take no further action until the partnership has agreed the action to be taken.

Investment advice

Investment business is regulated under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

If, during the provision of professional services to you, you need advice on investments, including insurances, we may have to refer you to someone who is authorised by the Financial Services Authority or licensed by a Designated Professional Body as we are not authorised to give such advice.

Lien

Insofar as we are permitted to do so by law or professional guidelines, we reserve the right to exercise a lien over all funds, documents and records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.

Limitation of liability

We will provide our services with reasonable care and skill. Our liability to you is limited to losses, damages, costs and expenses directly caused by our negligence or wilful default.

You will not hold us, or our Directors, responsible, to the fullest extent permitted by law, for any loss suffered by you arising from any misrepresentation (intentional or unintentional) supplied to us orally or in writing in connection with this agreement. You have agreed that you will not bring any claim in connection with services we provide to you against any of our directors or employees personally.

Exclusion of liability for loss caused by others

We will not be liable if such losses, penalties, surcharges, interest or additional tax liabilities are caused by the acts or omissions of any other person or due to the provision to us of incomplete, misleading or false information or if they are caused by a failure to act on our advice or a failure to provide us with relevant information.

Exclusion of liability in relation to circumstances beyond our control

We will not be liable to you for any delay or failure to perform our obligations under the engagement letter if the delay or failure is caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control.

Exclusion of liability relating to the discovery of fraud etc

We will not be responsible or liable for any loss, damage or expense incurred or sustained if information material to the service we are providing is withheld or concealed from us or misrepresented to us. This applies equally to fraudulent acts, misrepresentation or wilful default on the part of any party to the transaction and their directors, officers, employees, agents or advisers.

This exclusion shall not apply where such misrepresentation, withholding or concealment is or should (in carrying out the procedures which we have agreed to perform with reasonable care and skill) have been evident to us without further enquiry beyond that which it would have been reasonable for us to have carried out in the circumstances.

Indemnity for unauthorised disclosure

You agree to indemnify us and our agents in respect of any claim (including any claim for negligence) arising out of any unauthorised disclosure by you or by any person for whom you are responsible of our advice and opinions, whether in writing or otherwise. This indemnity will extend to the cost of defending any such claim, including payment at our usual rates for the time that we spend in defending it.

Limitation of aggregate liability

Where the engagement letter specifies an aggregate limit of liability, then that sum shall be the maximum aggregate liability of this company, its directors, agents and employees to all persons to whom the engagement letter is addressed and also any other person that we have agreed with you may rely on our work.  By signing the engagement letter you agree that you have given proper consideration to this limit and accept that it is reasonable in all the circumstances. If you do not wish to accept it you should contact us to discuss it before signing the engagement letter.

Limitation of Third Party rights

The advice and information we provide to you as part of our service is for your sole use and not for any third party to whom you may communicate it unless we have expressly agreed in the engagement letter that a specified third party may rely on our work. We accept no responsibility to third parties, including any group company to whom the engagement letter is not addressed, for any advice, information or material produced as part of our work for you which you make available to them. A party to this agreement is the only person who has the right to enforce any of its terms and no rights or benefits are conferred on any third party under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

Period of engagement and termination

Unless otherwise agreed in the engagement covering letter our work will begin when we receive your implicit or explicit acceptance of that letter. Except as stated in that letter we will not be responsible for periods before that date.

Each of us may terminate this agreement by giving not less than 21 days' notice in writing to the other party except where you fail to cooperate with us or we have reason to believe that you have provided us or HMRC with misleading information, in which case we may terminate this agreement immediately. Termination will be without prejudice to any rights that may have accrued to either of us prior to termination.

In the event of termination of this contract, we will endeavour to agree with you the arrangements for the completion of work in progress at that time, unless we are required for legal or regulatory reasons to cease work immediately. In that event, we shall not be required to carry out further work and shall not be responsible or liable for any consequences arising from termination. 

Consumer Protection (Distant Selling) Regulations 2000

As the contract for our services was initially made by telephone and/or by email the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 apply. This means that you have the right to cancel your instructions to us within seven working days of you receiving our email. You can cancel your instructions by contacting the firm by post, fax or email within seven working days of our email.

Once we have started work on your file you may be charged, even if you then cancel your Instructions. By agreeing to our terms and conditions, you are agreeing that we should start the work immediately and you will be liable for any charges if you do exercise your right to cancel.

Professional rules and statutory obligations

We will observe and act in accordance with the regulations, standards and guidance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and will accept instructions to act for you on this basis. In particular you give us the authority to correct errors made by HMRC where we become aware of them. We will not be liable for any loss, damage or cost arising from our compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations. You can see copies of these requirements at our offices. The requirements are also available on-line at www.icaew.com/regulations.

Reliance on advice

We will endeavour to record all advice on important matters in writing. Advice given orally is not intended to be relied upon unless confirmed in writing. Therefore, if we provide oral advice (for example during the course of a meeting or a telephone conversation) and you wish to be able to rely on that advice, you must ask for the advice to be confirmed by us in writing.

Retention of papers

You have a legal responsibility to retain documents and records relevant to your tax affairs. During the course of our work we may collect information from you and others relevant to your tax affairs. We will return any original documents to you [if requested]. Documents and records relevant to your tax affairs are required by law to be retained as follows:

Individuals, trustees and partnerships

• with trading or rental income: five years and ten months after the end of the tax year;
• otherwise: 22 months after the end of the tax year;

Whilst certain documents may legally belong to you we may destroy correspondence and other papers that we store, electronically or otherwise, which are more than seven years old. You must tell us if you require the return or retention of any specific documents for a longer period.

The Provision of Services Regulations 2009 ('Services Directive')

In accordance with our professional body rules, we are required to hold professional indemnity insurance. Details about the insurer and coverage can be found at our offices. 

Force majeure

We shall not incur any liability to you as a result of failure to perform our obligations under the agreement between us if the failure is due to causes outside our reasonable control.