General Terms of Engagement

(To be read in conjunction with Clients rights and obligations under the taxation laws, and our Privacy Policy)

This document sets out our terms of engagement and the scope of the work to be performed by us within this engagement. This document also supersedes any previous general terms of engagement document issued by us.

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

Since 1 March 2010, tax practitioners have been regulated in accordance with the requirements of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA) and the accompanying regulations. The TASA 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 (ATO). 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.

We may become ethically required to disclose non-compliance with laws or regulations to a regulatory authority if the non-compliance has a material effect on the work that we perform under this engagement.

Purpose and scope of engagement

Our engagement is to attend to the following matters:

• Prepare and lodge your annual income tax returns and accompanying schedules.

We will provide the service listed above which will be conducted in accordance with the relevant professional and ethical standards issued by the Accounting Professional & Ethical Standards Board Limited (APESB). The extent of our procedures 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, we will inform you of any such matters that come to our attention.

Unless otherwise agreed, we will prepare the above returns and schedules on an ongoing basis, in relation to the period following that for which the returns and statements have most recently been finalised, and for each subsequent period.

Our services will be provided to you on a fee for service basis.

This document relates only to the abovementioned services and details the basis and terms of this engagement. Unless otherwise agreed, our engagement will be limited to the matters described in this document.

Work that is performed or disbursements that are incurred which are outside the scope of this document will be the subject of additional charge.

Our engagement commences as soon as you attend an appointment at our office for the purpose of preparing your Individual Tax Return or otherwise provide us with information or instructions to complete your individual tax return and we accept those instructions.

In addition to any other rights you might have, you can terminate this engagement at any time by telling us in writing. We also reserve the right to do so by providing you with 14 days’ written notice.

Basis of engagement

Our engagement is to assist with the preparation and lodgment of the taxation returns for you.

Taxation services

In engaging us to provide taxation services, it is important for you to understand the following:

• You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the particulars and information provided to us by you.

• Any advice we provide is only an opinion 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 and will advise you at the beginning of the financial year when documentation should be provided to us. 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 lodgment penalties or interest charges you may incur.

Ownership of documents

The tax returns and any other documents which 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.

Additional services

The scope of our engagement is the preparation and lodgment of the accounting and taxation matters detailed above. Any agreed fee applies only to services and advice provided within the scope of our engagement. This fee includes checking and forwarding original assessments and payment notices that are received from the ATO.

Fees and charges

Our services will be provided to you on a fee for service basis.

Unless otherwise stated in writing, any estimates which we provide 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 or caps, 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 which 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.

We may require you to deposit money into our trust account in anticipation of our fees and charges. If you fail to make a required trust deposit, we may suspend work or terminate this engagement. You authorise us to apply trust moneys held on their 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.

If we suspend work or terminate this engagement by reason of your failure to make a trust deposit or provide a guarantee as required, we will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by you as a result of the suspension or termination.

Information relating to your affairs

Any information acquired by us in the course of our engagement, including any information relating to your affairs whether or not it belongs to you or not or is provided by you or not, is subject to strict confidentiality requirements. Information will not be disclosed by us to other parties except as required or allowed for by law or professional standards, or with your express consent.

Our files may, however, be subject to review as part of the quality control review program of CPA Australia or Chartered Accountants Australia / New Zealand which monitors compliance with professional standards by its members. You acknowledge and authorise that your file may be made available under this program. The same strict confidentiality requirements apply under this program as apply to us.

We may collect Personal Information about you, your representatives, your clients and others when we provide services to you. If we do, you agree to work with us to ensure that we both meet the obligations that we each may have under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (as amended) (Privacy Act). The obligations may include notifying the relevant person to whom the personal information relates who we are and how we propose to use their personal information. Where you have collected personal information, you confirm that you have collected the personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act, that you are entitled to provide this personal information to us and that we may use and disclose the personal information for the purpose/s we provide our services to you. We will handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act.

Involvement of others

Where, as part of our engagement, the services of an external consultant or expert are required, an estimated cost and timeframe and involvement will be provided to you for your approval.

Commissions or other inducements may be offered to us from time-to-time by our referral partners. This may include software, professional development training, promotional material or other goods or services. This will be disclosed to you upon your request.

Storage of Personal Information & use of Cloud Software

By using our services you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored overseas.

We use cloud software within our office. These cloud computing systems store files on remote services operated by third parties, including the use of hosting providers in other countries.

Non-compliance with Laws and Regulations (NOCLAR)

During the performance of our work under this engagement, we may detect conduct or a transaction that is considered to constitute NOCLAR, which has a material effect on any documents or information that might be required to be provided to a regulatory authority (RA), such as the ATO.

If we detect any NOCLAR, we may have an ethical requirement to make a disclosure to a RA. We will follow a formal process which will include advising you of our concerns, and if necessary, seeking legal advice. If we do seek legal advice we reserve the right to ask you to pay or reimburse us for our reasonable costs.

If we are required to make a disclosure to a RA, you agree to forever release us from any claim for costs or losses you incur in responding to or dealing with anything that arises from our disclosure.

Losses from unauthorised cyber-activity

We will take all reasonable precautions to ensure that any electronic data that contains your private information is securely stored and that any email transmissions are protected and are not able to be intercepted by third parties. However, we cannot be held liable for any loss that you might incur as a consequence of any third party intervention that accesses, procures or copies any data that contains your private information from any medium or device we use to store or transmit such information.

In the event that, despite our firm having taken reasonable precautions to securely store your private information, you suffer any losses arising from unauthorised cyber-activity, you agree to forever release us from any claim for your losses.

Limitation of liability

Our firm’s liability may be limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards legislation.

Details of services to be provided

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 which is outside the scope of this document and will be charged as additional services.

Income tax returns

Optimised Accounting has been engaged to prepare and lodge income tax returns for you.

Optimised Accounting will not be responsible for reviewing or verifying any financial records or statements provided to it either via manual cashbooks or prepared on accounting software. Correct coding or classification of accounts is outside the scope of this engagement. If assistance is required on how to correctly code, or to review how you currently do so, please discuss this with us. This will entail work which is outside the scope of this engagement and will be charged as additional services.

Also 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, such as a rental property schedule either prepared by you on a spreadsheet 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 which is outside the scope of this document 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 ATO. 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.

Confirmation of engagement

Booking of an appointment or providing us with information to complete your tax return constitutes acceptance of this document. Should you have any queries or do not agree to the terms of this document, please advise us immediately and prior to any work being commenced.