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.

Tax practitioners are regulated in accordance with the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA) and the accompanying regulations. The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) is responsible for the registration and regulation of tax practitioners and for ensuring their compliance with the TASA. As part of this role, the TPB maintains details of registered, suspended and deregistered tax practitioners. To check that we are registered, search the TPB Register at www.tpb.gov.au/public- register using either of the following details:

•        Practitioner name – Action Tax Services
•        Registration number – 26096649

An important feature of the taxation laws for clients is the provision of a ‘safe harbour’ from penalties in certain circumstances for taxpayers who engage registered tax agents. To obtain the benefits of safe harbour protection, a taxpayer must give their registered tax agent “all relevant taxation information” to enable accurate statements to be provided to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). This requirement may be important in identifying and understanding the purpose and scope of this engagement.

General information about taxpayers’ rights and obligations under the taxation laws (including safe harbour protection) and information about tax practitioners’ obligations to their clients, the ATO and the TPB are set out in the ‘Appendix’ to this engagement letter. This document is provided for information purposes only and should be retained by you for your records.

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 Individual 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 and on an ongoing basis.

This letter relates only to the above-mentioned 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. The documentation should be provided to us to allow for the preparation and lodgment of your income tax return by the due date prescribed by the ATO.

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.

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 is received 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
Unless otherwise expressly agreed with you in writing, our professional base fee for a tax return starts from $250 (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 may apply if your account remains outstanding and after 35 days your account will be sent to the debt collector at your expense as per our billing policy. 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 you come in for an interview but decide not to proceed with your return preparation you will be charged our interview fee of $250 (Inc gst).

You agree that we can bank into our trust account, any tax refund amounts received on your behalf. You also authorise us to apply any trust monies held on your behalf towards payment of fees and disbursements, and to meet our bill of costs which have been rendered and which have not been paid or disputed within 14 days after issue of the bill of costs.

Any additional services or advice (for example, tax planning advice) that You request are outside the scope of this letter and are not included in this agreed fee. We will separately advise You of the fee for these services, including any direct out-of-pocket expenses.

Please note that any correspondence from the ATO that does not relate to initial assessments or original payment notices will be charged as additional services.

Confidentiality
We have an ethical duty and a legal responsibility to keep information acquired as a result of this engagement confidential. This means that we will not disclose confidential information relating to You without your permission, unless there is a legal duty for us to do so.

We will also not use any such information for our own personal advantage or for the advantage of a third party.

From time to time, we may need to disclose information relating to your affairs to certain parties including, for example:

• a professional or regulatory body in response to an inquiry or investigation;
• the relevant parties (e.g., the TPB) to comply with technical and professional        standards (including ethical requirements);
• a professional body of which we are a member, in relation to a quality review program undertaken by that body; or
• relevant parties in order to protect our professional interests in legal proceedings.

You hereby authorise us to do so when we consider it appropriate to further our performance of work for You, or when requested by the relevant party.

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 endeavor to advise you and provide an amended estimate as soon as it is practicable to do so.

Our services will be provided to You on a fee-for-service basis. In addition to our professional fees, You will be responsible for payment of expenses which we incur on your behalf.

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/providers) 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.

Authority for ATO Digital Communication preferences
You agree to have the following types of ATO communication sent digitally to us, as your registered tax agent, on your behalf :

•        Income Tax.
•        Superannuation.
•        Study and training support loans.
•        Activity statement-related.
•        Debt.
•        Employer and business obligations.

You hereby authorise us to change or withdraw our preferred address for service of ATO communications. You also declare that the information supplied by you, for the setting or updating of these communication preferences, is true and correct.

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 which we hold no responsibility or are liable for. If You are reviewed or Audited by the ATO, additional fees will be payable. If you have any queries in respect to this, please contact our office for assistance.

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.