Terms and Conditions
Last updated: 12 July 2025
Company Name: Blueridge Tax Accounting Pty Ltd ABN: 39 656 395 256
Below is a copy of our most recent standard terms and conditions. The current terms and conditions are also present in any engagement terms and conditions document for new services that you sign when becoming a client or re-engaging with our firm. These terms are heavily guided by our Tax Practitioner Board regulator and membership in two industry accounting bodies in Australia.
The terms are long but incredibly important which is why we make this publically available on our website for a quick reference if you ever want to check something. Or ask us something. When working together to provide tax or accounting services, the actual terms and conditions that guide our relationship is the most-recent signed document between you and our firm.
1. Who may instruct us
You confirm that you, and any other person you nominate in writing from time to time (provided we have acknowledged such nomination), are authorised to give us instructions and information on behalf of all persons covered by this engagement letter. You also confirm that you are acting for and have authority to receive our advice and documents on their behalf.
Where multiple related entities or family members are involved, each individual must sign a separate terms & conditions or engagement letter with our firm or authorize sharing of information in writing.
We may require additional authorisations for any entities not listed in this engagement.
For the purposes of this engagement, we will assume that you have authority to provide instructions on behalf of all entities listed. Please advise us immediately if this is not the case.
If we are acting for a legal entity (e.g. company, trust, etc), and we receive conflicting advice, information or instructions from different persons, we may refer the matter to the board of directors, or beneficial owners, partners or proprietors (as applicable) collectively and act only as requested by them.
2. You and your spouse/partner and other entities
We will advise you and your spouse/partner on the basis that you are a family unit with shared interests. We may deal with either of you and may discuss with either of you the affairs of the other. If you wish to change these arrangements, please let us know.
3. Know your customer
We may be required to verify your identity for the purposes of the anti-money laundering (AML) laws. We may request from you such information as we require for these purposes and make searches of appropriate databases.
You agree to provide us with appropriate identification documents when requested. These may include driver's licenses, passports, company details, trust deeds, and proof of address. Different requirements apply to individuals, companies, trusts, and self-managed superannuation funds. Failure to provide requested identification documents or inconsistencies between other documents like trust deeds and bank statements may result in our inability to provide some or all of the agreed services.
4. Your responsibilities
You must provide us with all information necessary for dealing with your affairs including information which we reasonably request, in sufficient time to enable our services to be completed before any applicable deadline. We will rely on such information being true, correct and complete and will not audit the information for accuracy.
You authorise us to approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we consider necessary to deal with your affairs.
You must keep us informed on a timely basis of changes in your circumstances that may affect our services.
The Taxation Administration Act 1953 contains specific provisions that may provide you with "safe harbours" from administrative penalties for incorrect or late lodgment of returns if, amongst other things, you give us "all relevant taxation information" in a timely manner. Accordingly, it is to your advantage that all relevant information is disclosed to us as any failure by you to provide this information may affect your ability to rely on the "safe harbour" provisions and will be considered in determining the extent to which we have discharged our obligations to you.
In relation to your financial records, you will be specifically responsible for retaining copies of all financial records and source documents for a period of 5 years and providing to us all financial information we have requested within 10 working days of our request.
Please note that if you do not provide us your financial information properly reconciled and in the format requested by us, any up-front or fixed quotes we have provided to you may no longer be applicable and the cost of our services may be higher.
5. Qualifications on our services
To the extent our services involve the performance of services established by law, nothing in the engagement letter or these terms reduce our obligations under such law.
You must not act on advice given by us on an earlier occasion without first confirming with us that the advice is still valid. Our advice generally includes income tax and goods and services tax (GST) however nothing should be assumed. Unless stated otherwise, our comments and advice does not explicitly cover all types of taxes or duties that may be imposed by an Australian regulator or law. Potential taxes or duties that we may not explicitly mention include Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT), stamp duty and land tax. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, simply a reminder to explicitly ask if you wish us to comment on these matters.
Our services are limited exclusively to those you have engaged us to perform. Unless otherwise specified in the engagement letter, our services cannot be relied upon to disclose irregularities and errors, including fraud and other illegal acts, in your affairs. Neither an audit nor a review will be conducted and, accordingly, no assurance will be expressed. Similarly, our work cannot be relied upon to discloser irregularities including fraud, other illegal acts and errors that may exist. We will inform you of any such matters that come to our attention.
Where our engagement is recurring, we may amend our engagement letter and these terms where we consider it is necessary or appropriate to do so. If you do not accept such amendments, you must notify us promptly in which case you may terminate our engagement in accordance with section 18 below and those amendments will not apply prior to such termination.
6. Reliance on advice
We will endeavor to record all advice on important matters in writing, usually via letter or email. Advice given verbally is not intended to be relied upon unless confirmed in writing. If we provide verbal advice (for example during a meeting or telephone conversation) that you wish to rely on, you must ask us to confirm the advice in writing. We note that recording meetings or conversations, including any transcripts produced, is not a form of written advice unless confirmed by us explicitly in writing. Confirmations we make in writing can be as simple as an email reply and are only made by our directors or team members who are able to provide advice based on its completeness, context to your scenario/facts and accuracy of statements made to the relevant tax laws. It is also noted that any such written advice or transcript confirmation requests only relate to the contents we explicitly provide to you as advice, or confirm that recordings or summaries from your systems aligns with our comments as advice. Emphasising the above, it is noted that extracts of conversations without considering context, or Artificial Intelligence (AI) transcripts, are not forms of advice whether produced by our firm automatically or your systems interacting with our team members.
Our firm and team members generally agrees to recordings of meetings or conversations, however this agreement during a meeting or call, especially where any recording is made without our permission, does not replace, mitigate or reduce the requirement for written confirmation in the previous paragraph.
All advice provided is based on the Australian tax laws in force at the date of providing the advice or services to you. It is your responsibility to seek updated advice if you intend to rely on our advice at a later date.
7. Investment and financial advisory advice
We will not provide you with investment or financial advice regulated under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) unless we have expressly agreed to do so in writing, specifying an applicable Australian Financial Services Licence number. Our firm nor its employees hold such a licence. Where we perform work that may be unclear if it is advice under this section, e.g. setup of a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) we will co-ordinate with a financial planner at your cost to provide such advice or operate solely on your written instructions for the setup on the explicit understanding you have made your own determination whether advice is required and that advice is sufficient for your decision making purposes.
8. Professional obligations
We will comply with the professional and ethical standards of the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board, available at apesb.org.au. This includes APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including Independence Standards), which among other things contains provisions that apply if we become aware of any actual or potential ‘non-compliance with governing laws or regulations’ (NOCLAR). Where any such non-compliance poses substantial harm (such as serious adverse consequences to investors, creditors, employees, auditor, group auditor or the public), we may be required to disclose the matter to an appropriate authority.
9. Conflicts of interest
We will inform you if we become aware of any conflict of interest in our relationship with you (including between the various persons this engagement letter covers) or in our relationship with you and another client. Where conflicts are identified which cannot be managed in a way that protects your interests then we will be unable to provide further services to some or all of the persons to whom this engagement applies. If this arises, we will inform you promptly.
We may act for other clients whose interests are not the same as or are adverse to yours, subject to the obligations of conflicts of interest and confidentiality referred to above.
10. Fees and payment
Our fees will be charged on the basis set out in the engagement terms above and have been set based on the level of skill, responsibility, importance and value of the advice, as well as the level of risk.
If we have provided you with an estimate of our fees for any specific work, this is an estimate only and our actual fees may vary.
We may provide a fixed fee for the provision of specific services. If it becomes apparent to us, due to unforeseen circumstances, that a fixed fee is inadequate, we may notify you of a revised figure and seek your agreement to it.
In some cases, you may be entitled to assistance with your professional fees, particularly in relation to any investigation into your tax affairs by the ATO. 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 to be paid by someone else.
We will invoice the chosen billing entity on a monthly basis on the 15th of the month, where you select that choice in the pricing portion of this engagement letter. All other services will be invoiced to the recipient of the service, or chosen billing entity if you are part of a group, after completion of the agreed service or milestone where work is partially completed. All our invoices are due for payment within 7 days of issue of the invoice. Our fees set out in our engagement letter are exclusive of GST which will be added to our invoice where it is chargeable. Any disbursements and expenses we incur in the course of performing our services will be added to our invoices where appropriate. Where you use credit card or certain payment types a processing fee of 1.8% is added to the total of your invoice.
Unless otherwise agreed to the contrary, our fees do not include the costs of any counsel, or other professionals or third parties engaged with your approval.
We may charge interest on late paid invoices at the rate of 14% compounded daily. We may also suspend our services or to cease to act for you at any time if payment of any fees is unduly delayed. This includes removing you from paid software products e.g. Xero, Quickbooks or Waive ASIC management. This also includes removing you from our agent listing with the ATO or ASIC which can cause certain agent lodgement and payment extensions dates to be removed from your profile.
Debt collection. If any amount owed to us remains outstanding after the due date specified on your invoice, we reserve the right to refer the matter to a debt collection agency. In such circumstances, you agree to be liable for:
• The outstanding balance of the invoice(s), plus
• Any debt-collection agency fees or commissions (typically 20% of the outstanding amount),
• Reasonable legal and court costs, if applicable, and
• Any associated administrative expenses incurred in recovering the debt.
These additional charges will be added to the total amount due. Payment of these costs will be required immediately upon demand.
We intend to exercise these rights only where it is fair and reasonable to do so.
11. Lien
If permitted by law or professional guidelines, we may exercise a lien over all materials or records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.
We also reserve the right to transfer legal right to recover any unpaid invoices with you to a 3rd party collection agency or service if the amount is overdue for more than 30 days.
12. Client monies
We do not maintain a trust account for dealing with client monies. Any bank accounts, cash or rights to cash refunds on your behalf that we have direct or indirect access to via banking apps, the ATO online services platform or other systems will only be transacted on your behalf with your written instructions. Outside of our tax agent services to liaise with the ATO for forms and requesting refunds into your entities nominated bank account, we discourage giving us or our team members access in any form to your banking or banking access information.
13. Confidentiality
We will take all reasonable steps to keep your information confidential, except where:
· we need to disclose your information to our service providers (including auditors of client monies if applicable) or regulatory bodies in performing the services, our professional advisers or insurers or as part of an external peer review from time to time. Our files may also be subject to review as part of the quality review program of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand or the Tax Practitioners Board or The Tax Institute. By accepting this engagement you acknowledge that, if requested, our files relating to this engagement will be made available under this program. We will take reasonable steps to ensure any such recipient (other than a regulatory body) keeps such information confidential on the same basis;
· we are required by law, regulation, a court of competent authority, or those professional obligations referred to in section 8 above, to disclose the information;
· we provide limited information (but only to the extent reasonably necessary) to potential purchasers (or their professional advisors) of our practice but we will take reasonable steps to ensure that any such recipient keeps the disclosed information confidential;
· we use the information for training purposes, in the development of products or technology, in research or as source material for industry or other benchmarking data or studies (and it should be confirmed whether the personal information and/or identity of a person would be identifiable or de-identified from the outset; or
· you give us permission to disclose the information.
We may retain your information during and after our engagement to comply with our legal requirements or as part of our regular IT back-up and archiving practices. We will continue to hold such information confidentially.
Where we use the information for training purposes, product or technology development, research or as source material for industry or other benchmarking data or studies, the identity of any individual or entity to which such information relates will not be identifiable from the output of the activity for which the information is to be used or disclosed unless you have provided your permission for identification in writing in advance.
We may mention that you are a client for promotional purposes.
14. Privacy
You must make all necessary notifications and obtain any necessary consents for us to process personal information you provide to us. We collect and use that personal information for the purposes of providing the services described in the engagement letter to you and we will comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) when processing that personal information. Our privacy policy provides further details of our privacy practices.
We may involve third party contractors or outsourced service providers in providing various aspects of your accounting and tax work, including providing information to the independent auditor for a self-managed super fund (SMSF). Acceptance of our services in conjunction with this engagement letter indicates your acceptance of the use of outsourced services as described above. Where the outsourced service requires the disclosure of personal information to an overseas recipient, we will take all reasonable steps to comply with Australian Privacy Principles with regard to your personal information.
15. Ownership of materials
We own the copyright and all other intellectual property rights in everything we create in connection with this engagement. Unless we agree otherwise, anything we create in connection with this agreement may be used by you only for the purpose for which you have engaged us.
All original documents (paper or electronic) obtained from you arising from this engagement will remain your property. However we reserve the right to make a reasonable number of copies of the original documents for our records. This engagement may result in the production of financial statements, income tax returns, super fund documents and other electronic documents or files that will be supplied to you. Ownership of these documents will vest in you when provided to you by email, physical copy or secure document management system. All other documents produced by us in respect of the engagement will remain our property.
We may communicate with you electronically. Electronic transmissions are not secure and may be intercepted, corrupted, lost, contain viruses, or arrive late or incomplete. We do not accept responsibility for any errors or omissions that may arise from electronic communication.
For secure document exchange, we provide a client portal. We are not liable for unauthorised access resulting from client misuse or sharing of access credentials. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your login details.
Where electronic signatures or client portals are used, all parties agree these methods are legally valid for signing and exchanging documents under this engagement.
ATO or ASIC Agent portals
By accepting this engagement, you authorise {{ORGANISATION_NAME}} (Tax Agent Number: {{AGENT_NUMBER}}) to:
• Access your tax records via the ATO or ASIC Portal
• Lodge returns and statements on your behalf
• Update your registration details with the ATO or ASIC
• Correspond with the ATO regarding your tax affairs
• Request payment arrangements if required
• Access your ATO prefill reports
• View and manage your superannuation accounts
This authorisation remains valid until revoked in writing, authorizes access to historical and future tax records, does not authorize the tax agent to sign documents on your behalf, and may be limited by the ATO's systems and processes.
16. Limitation of liability
Our liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
You agree not to bring any claim against any of our directors, principals, shareholders, employees, suppliers or sub-contractors in their personal capacity.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable to you for:
· indirect, special or consequential losses or damages of any kind; or
· liability arising due to the acts or omissions of any other person or circumstances outside our reasonable control, or your breach of these terms.
17. Limitation of third party rights
Our advice and information is for your sole use, and we accept no responsibility to any third party, unless we have expressly agreed in the engagement letter that a specified third party may rely on our work.
18. Termination
Each of us may terminate this agreement by giving not less than 21 days’ notice in writing to the other party except where a conflict of interest has arisen, you fail to cooperate with us or we have reason to believe that you have provided us or any other person with misleading or factually inaccurate information, in which case we may terminate this agreement immediately. Termination will not affect any accrued rights.
Neither party shall be liable for any delay or failure to perform their obligations under this engagement resulting from events beyond their reasonable control, including but not limited to:
· Natural disasters
· Pandemics or widespread illness
· Government restrictions
· Power or telecommunications failures
· Cyber attacks
If a force majeure event occurs, the affected party shall promptly notify the other party and make reasonable efforts to perform their obligations as soon as practicable.
19. Communication
You must advise of any changes to your contact details. We may send any communications to the last contact details you have provided. Unless you instruct us otherwise we may, where appropriate, communicate with you and with third parties via email or by other electronic means. The recipient is responsible for virus checking emails and any attachments. There is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection or interception by third parties in any form of communication, whether electronic, postal or otherwise. We are not responsible for any such matters beyond our control.
20. Applicable Law
Our engagement is governed by New South Wales (NSW) law. The courts sitting in that State will have non-exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any dispute between us.
21. Interpretation
If any provision of the engagement letter or these terms is void, that provision will be severed and the remainder will continue to apply. If there is any conflict between the proposal engagement letter terminology and these terms, these terms prevail.
22. Disputes and complaints
If you have any concerns about our costs or services, please speak to the person responsible for this engagement, who is identified in our engagement letter. To resolve your concerns we have policies and procedures in place to deal appropriately with complaints and will use best endeavors to resolve a complaint or dispute to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved. We may require you to detail your complaint in writing to allow us to fully investigate any concerns that you raise.
Where your complaint concerns a tax agent service or BAS agent service that we have provided, you also have the right to make a complaint to the Tax Practitioners Board in accordance with their complaints process described here https://www.tpb.gov.au/complaints.
23. Third party responsibilities
We may utilise outsourced service providers and cloud computing service providers, including:
● Microsoft in Australia for email servers and Office desktop and online applications, and
● Hostpapa in Australia domain names, and Oncord in Australia webhosting, and
● LodgeIT in Australia tax lodgement software, and
● Xero in Australia, and
● Quickbooks in Australia, and
● Tax Dome in Australia, and
● Google Drive in Australia, and Dropbox in Australia, and
● Waive in Australia for ASIC portal and management software, and
● PandaDoc in Australia, and Jotform in Australia, and
● Active Campaign in Australia, and
● Windows computers and iphone or android mobile phone devices, and
● Seamlss in Australia, and
● Dashlane in Australia password manager,
and other third parties from time to time and as separately notified to you.
To perform the services, we may provide these third parties with access to your data to the extent this is required to perform the services. Where available, all services have 2 factor authentication to an authorisation app with biometric approvals switched on. As noted above, many of the above products we have quoted as 'in Australia' as we have signed up to their services using their Australian website or direct business communication. Many of these are global firms and could store or backup information on Amazon AWS or similar services in the United States of America (USA), Singapore, Canada and other jurisdictions globally. Where we are informed and our reasonable enquiries confirm a non-Australian location for storage of data is used for any data in our firm, we will inform you by updating the above list and sending you a new proposal engagement letter or advise you separately in writing.
Your data will be stored in servers physically located in Australia (unless otherwise specified) and in accordance with the security practices of the third party service provider and our Privacy Policy. By signing this engagement and accepting these services you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be stored overseas.
You are responsible for maintaining subscriptions for your accounting and payroll software platforms and providing us with appropriate access. Delays or issues arising from lapsed subscriptions or access problems are not our responsibility.
Generally we do not provide book-keeping services however many of our clients ask us to do one-off book-keeping, payroll and single touch payroll (STP) tasks among other items in their cloud based accounting records. Where we provide Single Touch Payroll or similar services, you accept responsibility for providing true and correct payroll information to us for the purpose of preparing and lodging STP reports on your behalf to the Australian Taxation Office.
You confirm that your staff wages comply with all applicable agreements, awards and legislation, that you have collected the correct amount of PAYG withholding from payments made to employees, and that you have withheld the correct amount of superannuation for each employee.
24. Consumer Data Rights
You may consent for an Accredited Data Recipient under the Consumer Data Right (CDR) to disclose your CDR data to us. You may nominate us as your Trusted Adviser for this purpose. As your Trusted Adviser, we will only access the data necessary to provide the services in this engagement letter.
25. Register of Tax Agents and BAS Agents available for you to search
The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) maintains a register with details of registered, suspended and deregistered tax and BAS agents. This register is available to the public to search at https://www.tpb.gov.au/public-register.
We are obliged to advise clients of certain events which may influence your decision to engage us as your tax agent. There are no current issues about which are obliged to advise you that we have not already mentioned in this proposal engagement letter or on our website.
We are also obliged to advise you whether there are any conditions attached to our registration.
There are no current conditions attached to our registration.
26. Your rights under Taxation Laws (including Tax Agent Services Act and the Tax Agent Services (Code of Professional Conduct))
Please refer to the attached fact sheet published by the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) summarising your obligations to the ATO, and your tax practitioner’s obligations to you, the TPB and ATO.
The fact sheet is here: https://www.tpb.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-10/Information%20for%20clients%20factsheet.pdf.