Holland Fielke Public Accountants

Individual Tax Return Engagements
Standard Terms and Conditions

These Standard Terms and Conditions of Engagement (T&Cs) apply to all services that we perform for you.

1. Purpose, Scope, and Output of the Engagement

We will provide taxation services to you in accordance with the relevant professional and ethical standards issued by the Accounting Professional & Ethical Standards Board Limited (APESB), including APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including Independence Standards) (the Code). The extent of our procedures and services will be limited exclusively for this purpose only. As a result, no audit or review will be performed and, accordingly, no assurance will be expressed.

Our engagement cannot be relied upon to disclose irregularities including fraud, other illegal acts and errors that may exist. However, APES 110 sets professional obligations for us to respond to non-compliance or suspected non-compliance with laws and regulations while providing a professional service to you.

2. Our Obligations

We will perform the Services with professional competence and due care, however the quality and timeliness of the Services provided may be impacted by your obligations.

3. Your Obligations

a. You must instruct us fully and respond to our enquiries arising during performance of the Services. Your timely provision of:

i. All relevant financial information and source documentation required to complete your income tax return – we are entitled to rely on the accuracy of the information provided by you, your representatives, or your advisers without independently verifying that information.

ii. Access to files, records, and information technology systems, to premises and to people (whether management or staff) with relevant skills and experience to respond to our enquiries.

iii. Written representations from you prior to finalising an engagement in relation to the completeness and accuracy of information that you have provided to us.

b. All income tax returns are subject to examination by the Australian Taxation Office. In the event of an examination, you may be requested to produce documents, records, or other evidence to substantiate items shown on your income tax return.

c. You agree to pay our fees and expenses within 7 business days of the date of our invoice or as otherwise agreed between us.

4. Independence and Conflicts of Interest

We have procedures in place to periodically assess our independence assigned to your engagement.

We will notify you in a timely manner should we become aware of any conflict of interest or independence issues.

If during the engagement you become aware of any conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest or there is a change of circumstances which may result in a conflict, you must advise us.

Events that may give rise to a conflict of interest or potential conflicts of interest include:

• Events affecting you, such as deaths, matrimonial disputes as well as litigation (threatened or actual).

• Changes to the structure of your business or your business relationships.

• Offering an employment opportunity to a current or former employee of our practice.

5. Confidentiality

We will conduct this engagement in accordance with professional and ethical standards issued by the APESB. The information acquired from you for this engagement is subject to strict confidentiality requirements and will not be disclosed by us to other parties except as required by law or professional and ethical standards unless we have your written consent. We use several information technologies in our practice. These technologies include on site computers, mobile telecommunication devices, servers, and online cloud services. When engaging our services, you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored locally and in data centres located in Australia/overseas.

Our files and systems may be subject to review as part of the IPA’s Quality Review Program, and you consent to your information being the subject of any review by IPA.

6. Privacy

We collect the contact details of our clients to provide taxation services to our clients and to communicate developments and changes in taxation requirements. We maintain a contact database to manage our dealings with you which includes the provision of taxation services and to provide you with other information from time to time.

7. Third Party Involvement [if applicable]

At times we may outsource some of our work which involves us entering into an agreement with a third party to provide specific processes, functions, services, or activities for us. If we decide to do this as part of performing the services for you, we will contact you first to seek your approval to engage other parties.

In providing our services to you, we utilize cloud computing systems provided by Xero and Microsoft.

8. Safe Harbour from Penalties (taxation services only)

A taxpayer who uses a registered tax agent will benefit from a safe harbour from certain administrative penalties in certain circumstances. Penalties may not apply to the taxpayer where:

• A false or misleading statement is made through a careless act or omission of the tax agent, provided the taxpayer has taken reasonable care to comply with their tax obligations by giving their tax agent the information necessary to make the correct statement; and

• A document (such as an income tax return) is not lodged on time by the tax agent or in the approved form due to a careless act or omission of the tax agent, provided the taxpayer gave the agent the necessary information, in sufficient time, to lodge the document on time and in the approved form.

9. Your Rights and Obligations under the taxation laws (taxation services only)

The taxation laws confer on your certain rights (such as the ability to challenge a decision of, or an assessment issued by, the Australian Taxation Office) but also imposes obligations on you (such as the keeping and retaining of adequate and accurate records and the filing of relevant returns with the Australian Taxation Office within the required lodgement dates). We will keep you informed on your specific rights and obligations under the taxation laws that become relevant from time to time during the Services we perform for you.

The onus is on you to self-assess and there are substantial penalties for lodging incorrect returns.

Therefore, it is your responsibility to review a draft income tax return carefully to ensure that items shown are correct and are accurately stated and, if there are any matters in the return that are incorrect, the appropriate adjustments are made prior to lodgement. Further, if there is any matter in the draft income tax return where the tax treatment is unclear, then this matter should be discussed with us to determine the appropriate disclosure to minimise exposure to potential penalties.

10. Notices and assessments

We undertake to check all instalments, assessments and other notices received and advise of any errors contained therein.

11. Ownership of Documents and Data

All original documents obtained from you during our engagement shall remain your property.

However, we reserve the right to make copies of the original documents for our records.

Our engagement will result in the production of documents which will be supplied to you, such as income tax returns, ownership of these documents will vest in you. All other documents produced by us in respect of this engagement will remain the property of our practice.

12. Lien Over Documents

If permitted by law, we may exercise a lien over all documents in our possession until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.

13. Trust Account

We maintain a trust account for any money received by us during offering professional accounting services, and to which we have no present entitlement.

14. Limited Liability

Our liability is limited by the IPA’s Professional Standards Scheme approved under the Professional Standards Legislation. A copy of the scheme can be obtained from the website of the Professional Standards Council: https://www.psc.gov.au.