Thank you for your instructions to attend to your taxation requirements. This letter sets out our terms of engagement and the scope of the work to be performed by us within that engagement.

Please read it carefully and if you have any queries or wish to discuss any aspect, please do not hesitate to contact us.

With effect from 1 March 2010, a new regime for the regulation of tax agents took effect under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 and accompanying legislation (TASA). The new regime has implications for registered tax agents and also for their clients. An important feature of TASA is the provision of a “safe harbour” protection from penalties in certain circumstances for taxpayers who engage registered tax agents.

To obtain the benefits of “safe harbour” protection, the legislation requires the taxpayer to provide the registered tax agent with “all relevant taxation information” to enable accurate statements to be provided to the Australian Taxation Office. This requirement may be important to both parties in identifying and understanding the purpose and scope of the engagement as set out below and may also affect other matters discussed below. You will find further discussion on the “safe harbour” protections in the accompanying document entitled Clients’ rights and obligations under the taxation laws.

If the terms of our engagement are acceptable, we ask that you sign this engagement letter in the places indicated. Please note that we are unable to perform any work for you until we receive the signed copy.

Purpose and scope of engagement

Our engagement is to prepare and lodge the annual income tax return for you. Unless otherwise expressly agreed with you in writing, our services will be provided to you on a fee for service basis based on hourly rates.

This letter relates only to the abovementioned service and details the basis and terms of this engagement. Unless otherwise agreed, our engagement will be limited to the matters described in this letter. Work that is performed, or any disbursements incurred, will be subject to an additional charge.

Basis of engagement

Our engagement is to assist with the preparation and lodgement of the taxation return for you. We expect that all relevant information will be collated and forwarded to our office.

Taxation services

In engaging us to provide taxation services, it is important for you to understand that:
• You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the particulars and information provided to us by you.

• Any advice provided is an opinion only based on our knowledge of your particular circumstances.

• You have obligations under the self-assessment regime to keep full and proper records in order to facilitate the preparation of accurate returns.

• We cannot provide taxation services if we find that information on which those services are to be based contain false or misleading information, or omit material information, and you are not prepared to appropriately amend that information.

Documentation

Before we lodge any returns on your behalf, we will forward the documents to you for approval. We will endeavour to ensure that the returns are lodged by the due dates. If you are late in providing information, we will do our best to meet the time limits, but we will not be responsible for any late lodgement penalties or interest charges you may incur.

Ownership of documents

The tax returns that we are specifically engaged to prepare, together with any original documents given to us by you, shall be your property. Any other documents brought into existence by us, including general working papers, the general ledger and draft documents, will remain our property at all times.

If our services are terminated, we shall be entitled to retain all documents owned by you until payment in full of all outstanding fees from you. Where copies of any documents released to you are required for our records, you will be charged for the cost of photocopying at our normal rates.

Additional services

The scope of our engagement is the preparation and lodgement of the taxation return detailed above. Any agreed fee applies only to services and advice provided within the scope of this letter. This fee includes the checking and forwarding of original assessments and original payment notices that are received from the Australian Taxation Office.

However, any additional services or advice requested are outside the scope of this letter and are not included in this agreed fee. These services will be charged on the basis of the time and degree of skill and acumen required to complete the task undertaken by us, including any direct out-of-pocket expenses. Please note in particular, any correspondence from the Australian Taxation Office not relating to initial assessments nor original payment notices will be charged as additional services.

Fees and charges

Our services will be provided to you on a fee for service basis. Unless otherwise expressly agreed with you in writing, our professional base fee for a tax return starts from $220 (Inc. GST). Our base fee for a tax return includes standard income, deductions and offsets and covers the majority of our tax returns. There are additional charges on top of the base fee for completing complex sections of the tax return such as rental property, depreciation, trusts, foreign income, foreign deductions, capital gains, business income, log books and for our optional Fee From Refund service. Our fees for the preparation of your income tax and other documentation is payable upon completion and prior to lodgement of the return. Credit Fees will apply if your account remains outstanding after the our strict 7 day terms and after 35 days your account will be sent to the debt collector at your expense as per our billing policy.

If you come in for an interview or engage in our services but decide not to proceed with your return preparation you will be charged our interview fee of $220 (Inc. GST).

Fee from Refund Authority 

Clients choosing our Fee From Refund option will have their refunds less our fee, released to them within two(2) business days of receiving the funds from the ATO.

If the Tax Return results in a partial, debit or NIL assessment, you agree to pay Action Tax Services the Total Fee shown above immediately upon advice.  You agree that any legal fees or charges relating to collection of the debt you incur due to requesting deferred payment, and interest at the rate of 12% per annum will be payable by the client to Action Tax Services on any fees outstanding for more than one week from date of notification.

You acknowledge that you do not have any outstanding debts with Child Support, Centrelink (including FAO debts), Australian Tax Office (including BAS Debts) or any other Government Department.

You understand that should your assessment result in a nil or insufficient refund, to cover your fees, due to other debts recovered an additional minimum fee of $110 (Inc GST) will automatically apply.

If direct credit has been requested and should the deposit be returned to the Action Tax Services Account by the bank, you understand you will be notified by telephone to provide the correct bank details.

Disbursements

Unless otherwise stated in writing, any estimates provided to you of our anticipated fees, disbursements and charges for any work are only indicative of the amounts you can expect to be charged. Estimates are not quotes and are not binding on us.

Where an estimate is given and the scope of the work changes, or if it becomes apparent that the work involves matters that were not taken into account in the estimate, we will endeavour to advise you and provide an amended estimate as soon as it is practicable to do so.

Limitation of liability

Our firm’s liability may be limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. We shall now outline the basis of our engagement in the context of the specific services to be provided.

It should be noted at the outset that as a general proposition we rely upon our clients to provide us with accurate and timely information to enable us to properly perform our engagement obligations. Consequently, any rectifying work performed by us on the basis of incorrect or late information will be work that is outside the scope of this letter and will be charged as additional services.

Information relating to your affairs

Our firm may from time to time use the services of third party contractors to perform some of the services we are engaged to perform for you. You hereby authorise us to disclose information relating to your affairs to all such third party contractors as we may choose to engage to perform such work.
Where we use the services of third party contractors, we are nevertheless responsible for the conduct and activities of those contractors and for the delivery of the services we are engaged to perform for you.

From time to time our firm and our third party contractors may engage external IT service providers (including in relation to ‘cloud computing’ services) in the performance of services under this engagement. Each client in the Group hereby authorises us and our third party contractors to disclose information relating to those clients' affairs to all such external IT service providers as we or our third party contractors may choose to engage.

Income tax returns

This firm has been engaged to prepare and lodge income tax returns for you.
Please ensure that you have all source documentation available to allow this firm to analyse the income tax implications of any transaction, if we request to see it. Whilst we will not as a matter of course be looking at these documents, the ATO will expect you (and you are required) to have them available before any claim is made in your income tax return. We may in some circumstances also request to see source documents if a tax issue is particularly contentious.
It is also expected that, in respect of individual income tax returns, each person will have the necessary documents so as to comply with the substantiation provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Act.

We will specifically advise as to the requirements of the substantiation provisions relating to your income tax return and of the necessity to obtain acceptable receipts as specifically required by the legislation. We will not, however, be checking that the requirements of the substantiation provisions have been satisfied.

This specifically means that we will not be reviewing your log book or any calculations or information you provide us, for example a rental property schedule either prepared by you on spread sheet or by a property manager. If you require assistance in completing a log book or preparing any calculations or you would like us to review such work, please discuss this with us. This will entail work that is outside the scope of this letter and will be charged as additional services.

From time to time, this firm prepares templates and schedules to assist with the collation of information to complete income tax returns. These will be provided free of charge.

The fee for this service does not cover any inquiries made to us or investigations involving us conducted by the Australian Taxation Office. Substantial penalties apply for an incorrectly prepared income tax return. If you have any queries in respect to this, please contact our office for assistance.

You agree that we can bank into our trust account the tax refund amounts received on your behalf and we can then deduct from those funds any fees owed to us.

Confirmation of engagement

Obviously, there are many issues to consider in this engagement and we ask that you consider all aspects of this letter to ensure that you are satisfied with the scope of our engagement.

Please contact us if you have any queries about this letter.

Once you are satisfied with the terms of this letter, would you please sign and date this letter in the places indicated.

We thank you for the opportunity to provide taxation services to you and we look forward to developing a close accounting relationship with you for many years to come.