Standard terms and conditions of business
These terms and conditions should be read alongside the privacy notice.
They apply to all engagements accepted by Maratax Limited. All work is carried out under
these terms except where changes are expressly agreed in writing.
1. Applicable law
Our engagement letter, the schedule of services and our standard terms and conditions of
business are governed by, and should be construed in accordance with, the law and practice
of England and Wales. Each party agrees that the courts of England and Wales will have
exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this
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.
2. Client identification and verification
As with other professional services firms, we are required to identify and verify our clients
for the purposes of the UK anti-money laundering legislation. Save in exceptional
circumstances we cannot start work until this requirement has been met. We may request
from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we require for these purposes
and/or make searches of appropriate databases including ID verification software.
[If you are undertaking business that requires you to be supervised by an appropriate
supervisory authority to follow anti-money laundering regulations, including if you accept or
make high value cash payments of £10,000 or more (or equivalent in any currency) in
exchange for goods, you must inform us.]
Any personal data received from you to comply with our obligations under The Money
Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer)
Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money
laundering or terrorist financing.
No other use will be made of this personal data unless use of the data is permitted by or
under enactment other than the MLR 2017, or we have obtained the consent of the data
subject to the proposed use of the data.
3. Client money
If we 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. The account will be operated and all funds dealt
with in accordance with Chartered Institute of Taxation rules.
4. Commissions and other benefits
In some circumstances we may receive commissions and/or other benefits for introductions
to other professionals or in respect of transactions that 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. The same will apply where the payment is made to or the
transactions are arranged by a person or business connected with one of ours associates.
The fees you would otherwise pay will not be reduced by the amount of the commissions or
benefits.
5. Confidentiality
Communication between us is confidential. We shall take all reasonable steps not to
disclose your information except where we are required to and as set out in our privacy
notice. 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 and security
terms.
6. Conflicts of interest
If there is a conflict of interest in our relationship with you or in our relationship with you
and another client that is capable of being addressed successfully by the adoption of
suitable safeguards to protect your interests, then we will adopt those safeguards.
Where conflicts are identified that 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. 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.
7. Data protection
In this clause, 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 UK 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;
‘UK GDPR’ means the Data Protection Act 2018 as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy
and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 20‘PECR’ means
the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2426/2003)
as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments
etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
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 policy available on our website for this
purpose); maratax.co.uk
(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, [email protected]
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 on our
website) contains further details as to how we may process client personal data.
For the purpose of providing our services to you, we may disclose the client personal data to
our regulatory bodies or other third parties (for example, our professional advisors or
service providers). The third parties to whom we disclose such personal data may be located
outside of the United Kingdom. We will only disclose client personal data to a third party
(including a third party outside of the UK) provided that the transfer is undertaken in
compliance with the data protection legislation.
We may disclose the client personal data to other third parties in the context of a possible
sale, merger, restructuring or financing of or investment in our business. In this event we
will take appropriate measures to ensure that the security of the client personal data
continues to be ensured in accordance with data protection legislation. If a change happens
to our business, then the new owners may use our client personal data in the same way as
set out in these terms.
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, from or on behalf of a relevant data subject, to exercise their data
subject rights under the data protection legislation or a complaint or any adverse
correspondence 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 the Information Commissioner’s Officer or any other supervisory
authority; 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.
8. Disengagement
Should we resign or be requested to resign we will normally issue a disengagement letter to
ensure that our respective responsibilities are clear.
Should we have no contact with you for a period of two years or more, we may issue to your
last known address a disengagement letter and thereafter cease to act.
We reserve the right following termination for any reason to destroy any of your documents
that we have not been able to return to you after a period of six months unless other laws
or regulations require otherwise.
9. Electronic and other communication
As instructed, we will communicate with you and with any third parties you instruct us to as
set out in our covering letter and privacy notice 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 that 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 accept 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 hard copy, other than where electronic submission is mandatory.
Any communication by us with you sent through the post is deemed to arrive at your postal
address two working days after the day that the document was sent.
When accessing information held electronically by HMRC, we may have access to more
information than we need and will only access records reasonably required to carry out the
contract.
You are required to keep us up to date with accurate contact details at all times. This is
important to ensure that communications and papers are not sent to the incorrect address.
10. Fees and payment terms
Our fees may depend not only upon the time spent on your affairs but also on the level of
skill and responsibility, and the importance and value of the advice that we provide, as well
as the level of risk.
If we provide you with an estimate of our fees for any specific work, then the estimate will
not be contractually binding unless we explicitly state that that will be the case.
Where requested, we may indicate a fixed fee for the provision of specific services or an
indicative range of fees for a particular assignment. 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.
Other than where such insurance was arranged through us, 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.
We will bill monthly or annually and our invoices are due for payment upon presentation of
issue. Our fees are exclusive of VAT, which will be added where it is chargeable. Any
disbursements we incur on your behalf and expenses incurred in the course of carrying out
our work for you will be added to our invoices where appropriate.
Unless otherwise agreed to the contrary, our fees do not include the costs of any third
party, counsel or other professional fees.
