Tax Refund Terms & Conditions

These terms and conditions (‘Terms’) apply to all professional services provided by Brian Alfred Associates Ltd, a limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 5578165 at Optionis House, 840 Ibis Court, Centre Park, Warrington, WA1 1RL (also referred to in these terms as ‘Brian Alfred’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’).

We try to keep our Terms simple and avoid too much legal gobbledygook. This way, we hope you (‘the Client’, ‘you’, being the person or business named in the order submitted pursuant to clause 2.3 below) will be encouraged to read them in full.

1. Definitions and interpretation

Business Day: means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or English public holiday.
Parties: means each of Brian Alfred and the Client (and ’Party’ shall mean either of them as applicable).
Fees: the Fee that you, our Client, pay to us for carrying our Services.
Services: means the services you have requested and which we have agreed to provide.

Any words following the words including; in particular, for example, or any similar expression shall be illustrative and shall not limit the sense of the words, description, or term preceding those words.

A reference to a law is a reference to it as amended, extended, or re-enacted from time to time and shall include all subordinate laws made from time to time under it.

2 Services

2.1 We provide the following services:
Tax Refund: A tax refund or tax rebate is the money that you get back from HMRC if you paid too much in tax.
Tax Refund Services: we will prepare the documentation needed in order to apply for a tax refund from HMRC on your behalf.
Self-Assessment Tax Return Services: we will prepare a self-assessment tax return on your behalf.

2.2 As part of the Tax Refund Services only, we will work the rest of the tax year in which you instructed us free of charge. That includes tax advice, HMRC tax enquiries for any periods we have acted for you, telephone consultations and references concerning insurance claims, mortgage, rental, and status.

2.3 Prior to commencing work, we will confirm the Services you have requested us to provide and the relevant Fee for the Services in writing either by text, email or letter. When you submit an order to us, confirm our scope of work in writing or click ‘submit’ on an online request for services (Order), you agree to be bound by these Terms and a contract between you and us comes into existence. Each contract will remain in force until all relevant Services have been completed and you have made payment for those Services (unless otherwise terminated in accordance with these terms).

3 Obligations of Brian Alfred

3.1 Brian Alfred undertakes to process all information provided and verified by you with reasonable care and skill. Please note the following:
(a) All claims as part of Tax Refund Services will be sent to HMRC to check and process and, once confirmed, we will pay out your Tax Refund once we receive the corresponding amount from HMRC unless it is paid to you directly by HMRC.
(b) Brian Alfred will not be liable for any refusal of or delays in Tax Refunds being paid to you that have been caused by: (i) HMRC’s procedures and security checks; or (ii) your failure to provide complete and accurate information when requested.

3.2 Brian Alfred will not undertake an audit of your accounts and records. It is your responsibility to ensure that all information and declarations provided to Brian Alfred are true, accurate and complete and any information provided by you to Brian Alfred will be assumed to be true, accurate and complete. You must remember at all times that HMRC will hold you wholly and solely liable should you be unable to substantiate any of the data declared within your tax return at a later date.

3.3 At Brian Alfred, we are proud of our outstanding reputation with HMRC and other institutions. We reserve our right to protect this position and (if deemed necessary) to decline to act on your behalf or to reject your tax claim application at any point where we have reason to believe that in carrying out our obligations and any Services to you our good name might be jeopardised or damaged. We also reserve the right to cease acting for you on written notice at any time. On such occasions, you will be notified without reasonable delay, no further Fee will be charged and if you have paid for Services not yet provided we will issue you a refund.

4 Obligations of you ‘the Client’

4.1 It is your obligation to fully disclose to Brian Alfred all of your earnings (be they CIS, self-employed, private cash-in-hand, or PAYE), all forms of jobseeker’s allowance and benefits received for each tax year under preparation and of any previous debt owed to HMRC, and to make a true, accurate, correct and complete declaration of all expenditure incurred in the pursuit of your business activities. Brian Alfred cannot know your movements, earnings or what expenses you incurred in each tax year, and will not be held liable for your failure to make a full disclosure at the time of your claim.

4.2 It is a mandatory requirement of HMRC that you keep full accounting records which properly document the information you supply in support of your tax claim and which you will ratify when authorising your tax return. Such records must be sufficiently robust to withstand an HMRC enquiry and you should ensure that you adhere to HMRC guidelines in full. Brian Alfred supports these regulations completely and can offer free support to you to help you achieve full compliance (see our website https://brianalfred.co.uk).

4.3 You agree to co-operate wholly and fully with Brian Alfred at all times and you must provide all information and documents requested by us promptly, including completing any documents marked as mandatory within any ‘Tax Refund Pack’ we may send to you. You will ensure that all such information is true, accurate, correct and complete.

4.4 You agree that you will be responsible for the repayment of any Tax Refund paid (plus any penalties and interest that occur) where it is found by HMRC that your claim is based on incorrect information supplied by you or where HMRC reinstates any previous debt owed by you. Where this occurs before Brian Alfred has been reimbursed for the Tax Refund paid to you, we reserve the right to reclaim repayment of this sum from you as we deem legally appropriate, including by withholding amounts paid to us by HMRC as your agent. In such circumstances, you will have no right to the protection offered by the Brian Alfred guarantee (see clause 10).

5 The computation, payment and receipt of your Tax Refund

5.1 Where your Tax Refund is sent directly to you by HMRC, or your tax code is changed by HMRC in place of issuing the refund, you agree to pay us the agreed Fee and we reserve the right to claim the payment of our Fee through all appropriate legal measures.

5.2 Brian Alfred retains all legal rights to the computations and calculations made within the tax return and to any intellectual property contained therein. This data is reserved as the exclusive property of Brian Alfred for the sole purpose of submitting a tax return on your behalf. As such, Brian Alfred reserves all legal rights to take whatever action is deemed as legally appropriate should there be any misuse of this information by you, including the submission by you of your own tax return using this data.

5.3 Brian Alfred cannot be held responsible for any delays caused by HMRC and does not provide any warranty or guarantee in this respect. We will not be liable to you for any losses, costs, expenses, claims or damages which may arise from such delays.

6 Data Protection and Money Laundering

6.1 We are registered as a data controller with the ICO (no. Z2752059) and take your right to privacy very seriously. For our part, we undertake that any personal data about you which is received by us will only be used in accordance with our legal responsibilities and in the carrying out of the Services. Please see our privacy policy for more information. For your part, you acknowledge that provision of the Services requires our storing of this data both in paper form and electronically, its confidential
destruction thereafter and processing your personal data as required for the provision of the Services including sharing your personal data with HMRC and such other government departments or agencies or third parties as required.

6.2 In accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Money Laundering Regulations 2017 you acknowledge that we may be obliged to share information about our relationship with you to the extent of any report made, document provided or information disclosed to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

6.3 You also acknowledge that we are required to report directly to the National Crime Agency without prior reference to you or your representatives if, during the course
of providing Services to you, the person undertaking the role of Money Laundering Reporting Officer becomes suspicious of money laundering.

6.4 We are required to gather evidence of the identification of our customers by way of customer due diligence. For this purpose we will request personal information from you and we will undertake electronic verification of identification checks for these purposes. We do not accept any liability to you for any losses, costs, expenses, claims or damages, whether direct, indirect or consequential and including any late filing penalties, interest, additional tax liability or charges caused to you or for any delay in providing the Services due to undertaking these checks or any failure or delay by you in providing the requested information.

6.5 If we are unable to complete the customer due diligence checks that we are required to carry out by law, then we are legally required to terminate our relationship with you.

7 Retention of Records

7.1 During the performance of the Services we will collect information from you and will return any original documents to you following completion of our work.

7.2 Files and documents created during the provision of the Services belong to us and will remain under our power and control. It is not our practice to grant access to or release such files or documents other than in the course of due diligence investigations where we have received a formal request suitably releasing us from liability.

7.3 We destroy correspondence and other papers that we store which are more than six years old from the end of the financial year to which they relate, other than documents that we consider are of continuing significance to ourselves or other third parties or which we have a legal obligation to retain for a longer period.

7.4 We may choose to hold documents in electronic format and in such cases we may destroy original papers that we hold earlier than as stated above.

7.5 We reserve the right to charge, at our discretion, additional fees should we be requested to provide copies of original documents or records to you or in relation to the storage of any documents that we hold on your behalf.

8 Call Recording

We may monitor telephone calls, emails and any other communication between you and us for the purposes of training, security, quality control and other lawful business purposes.

9 Our Fees

9.1 Where possible, the Fee for the Services or the means of calculating it will be set out in writing prior to commencing work.

9.2 For Tax Refund Services and Self-Assessment Tax Return Services, we will confirm the Fee plus VAT to you in writing (by text, email or by letter) before you are asked to approve your tax return. You agree to pay the Fee plus VAT as agreed for the Services.

9.3 Subject to clause 9.5, for Tax Refund Services and Self-Assessment Tax Return Services, the Fee is deducted when we receive the gross refund computed on your tax claim. If a refund is not due, Fees must be paid by you prior to us commencing any Services.

9.4 In accordance with the above you hereby acknowledge and agree that we are entitled to set off any monies that you owe to us against any monies that we may owe to you or have received on your behalf.

9.5 For tax returns without refunds, if you are in a position of tax liability or if you currently have bad debt with HMRC, the Fee is payable before we submit your tax return to HMRC. If you are due a Tax Refund that we anticipate does not cover our Fee, we will charge the difference between the Fee due and the Tax Refund expected, and this will be payable by you before we submit your tax return to HMRC.

9.6 If you fail to make any payment due to us under these Terms by the due date then we will be entitled to suspend the provision of the Services until such a time as the amount is received in full. For the avoidance of doubt we will not be liable to submit any tax return on your behalf should you fail to make payment on the due date and we will not accept any liability for any losses, costs, expenses, claims or damages,
whether direct, indirect or consequential and including any late filing penalties, interest, additional tax liability or charges suffered by you as a result of our failure to supply the Services and submit any tax return in such circumstances.

9.7 Brian Alfred guarantees that no Fee will be deemed payable by you should you reasonably reject our computations prior to our receiving your authority to submit the aforementioned tax return(s). In the event you have made any advance payment, we will refund the same once you confirm in writing you do not wish us to proceed and you return to us any documentation we have provided.

10 The Brian Alfred guarantee

10.1 We are so confident of the rigorous procedures we have in place that so long as you comply with all of your obligations under these Terms, which include but are not limited to making a full and accurate declaration of all your income and expenses (and telling us of any debts you have at HMRC), then we guarantee to provide a refund equivalent to the amount We assessed as being due to you (Guaranteed Amount) in the event of a subsequent HMRC enquiry.

10.2 Our guarantee makes your claim for any Guaranteed Amount 100% secure, which means that once you’ve received the Guaranteed Amount, you’ll know it’s yours to keep. If HMRC does raise an enquiry in respect of a claim as described in clause 10.1, then, subject to clause 10.3 below, not only will we close the enquiry entirely free of charge, but we will also go so far as to protect (and if necessary repay) the Guaranteed Amount in full (inclusive of interest and penalties due to HMRC) directly to HMRC without liability or cost to you. This guarantee is, however, limited to the total liability charged by HMRC at the end of such an enquiry and does not extend to other costs incurred or damages suffered by you in any form whatsoever, either directly or indirectly.

10.3 This guarantee becomes invalid and will not apply if the cause of the enquiry or adjustment is due to your failure to provide us with true, accurate, correct and complete information at any point before, during or after the submission of your tax return(s), or if the tax reclaim(s) cannot be released by HMRC due to a pre-existing and undeclared tax liability owed by you to HMRC.

11 Limitation of liability

11.1 The advice which we give to you is for your sole use and does not constitute advice to any third party to whom you may communicate it.

11.2 We will provide professional services with reasonable care and skill. However we will not be responsible for any losses, penalties, surcharges, interest or additional tax liabilities arising from the supply by you or others of incorrect or incomplete information, or from the failure by you or others to supply any appropriate information or your failure to act upon our advice or respond promptly to communications from us or HMRC.

11.3 Nothing in these Terms shall limit or exclude our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or any other liability which cannot be limited or excluded by law.

11.4 Subject to clause 11.3, we shall not be liable to you, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, misrepresentation, or otherwise, for any: loss of profit; loss of revenue; loss of contracts or business; loss of or damage to goodwill; loss of data or information; expenses; damages; delay; costs; or compensation (whether direct or indirect); or any indirect or consequential loss or damages which may be suffered or incurred by you.

11.5 Subject to clause 3.1(c), 5.4, 9.6, 10.3 and 11.4, our total aggregate liability to you shall be limited to five times the Fee payable by you to us in respect of the Service in relation to which the claim is made. By instructing us to provide the Service, you will be agreeing to this limitation and you should consider the fairness of this limit before doing so and where appropriate seek formal legal advice on the extent of this limitation of liability.

11.6 Each Party acknowledges that it has not relied on and, subject to clause 11.3, will have no remedies (whether in equity, contract, tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty, for misrepresentation (including negligent misstatement), or in any other way) for any warranty, assurance, guarantee or representation which is not expressly set out in these Terms.

11.7 No liability is accepted in respect of liabilities, losses, costs, expenses, claims or damages arising from events prior to your acceptance of these Terms.

11.8 This clause 11 shall survive the termination of these Terms.

12. Indemnity

12.1 You hereby agree to indemnify, keep indemnified and hold Brian Alfred harmless against all claims and proceedings and all liability, loss, penalties, costs and expenses it suffers or incurs arising from a breach of these Terms or any obligation you may have to us including, but not limited to, you providing correct, true and accurate information and fully disclosing all required and relevant information.
12.2 This clause 12 shall survive the termination of these terms.

13 Complaints and dispute resolution

Of course, we always aim to provide a perfect Service, but if at any time you become dissatisfied with us, then we would urge you first to discuss the matter with a member of our senior management, and then if you remain displeased to write to us at Brian Alfred Associates Ltd, Optionis House, 840 Ibis Court, Centre Park, Warrington, WA1 1RL. All such communications must be sent by recorded delivery. You are, however, reminded that once you have signed the tax return and approved its submission to HMRC, the tax return cannot be withdrawn and our Fees will stand in full.

14. Terminations

14.1 Brian Alfred may terminate its contract with you with immediate effect if it cannot comply with any obligations it is legally required to comply with in relation to the Services, including in relation to anti-money laundering.

14.2 We aim to always act in a professional and objective manner on your behalf. If this level of Service cannot be maintained by us due to unreasonable or abusive behaviour by you, or due to any attempt by you or a third party to influence our decision making, or due to any failure by you to explain an apparent irregularity to our satisfaction, we will be entitled to terminate our contract with you with immediate effect by giving written notice to you.

14.3 Termination of these Terms, howsoever caused, shall not prejudice or affect any rights, remedies or liabilities of either of the Parties that have accrued up to the date of termination including the right to claim damages in respect of any breach of these Terms which existed at or before the date of termination. Expiry or termination of a contract shall not affect the coming into or continuance in force of any provisions of these Terms which are expressly or by reasonable interpretation intended to come into or continue in force on or after expiry or termination.

14.4 All our obligations to provide any Service, whether past, current or future will terminate on the termination date. No act, intentional or otherwise, on our part arising after the termination date shall affect the cessation of our obligations.

14.5 Upon termination of these Terms you shall immediately pay to us all of our outstanding unpaid invoices and, in respect of Services supplied but for which no invoice has yet been submitted, we shall submit an invoice, which shall be payable by you immediately on receipt.

15 Changes to these Terms

These Terms may be revised from time to time and the updated Terms will be available on our website ( www.brianalfred.co.uk). You agree that we may vary these Terms and you agree to accept any changes made to these Terms. You acknowledge that it is your obligation to ensure that you regularly review the terms found on our website so that you are aware of any changes.

16 Severance

If any provision (or part of any provision) of these Terms is or becomes illegal, invalid, or unenforceable in any respect, it will not affect or impair the legality, validity or enforceability of any other provision of these Terms and that provision (or part provision) will be deemed deleted.

17 General

17.1 These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and the Courts of England shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with them.

17.2 You shall not, without our prior written consent, assign, transfer, mortgage, charge or deal in any other manner with all or any of your rights, obligations or liabilities under or in connection with these Terms.

17.3 Any notice given to a Party under or in connection with these Terms shall be in writing, addressed to that Party at its registered office or its principal place of business or such other address as that Party may have specified to the other Party in writing in accordance with this clause and shall be delivered personally, or sent by pre-paid first class post or other next working day delivery service or commercial courier or by email to the address for either party specified within the relevant Order.

17.4 A notice or other communication shall be deemed to have been received: if delivered personally, when left at the given address for that Party; if sent by pre-paid first class post or other next working day delivery service, at 9.00 am on the second Business Day after posting; if delivered by commercial courier, on the date and at the time that the courier’s delivery receipt is signed; or, if sent by email, at 9.00 am on the Business Day following transmission (provided no error message is received to indicate the email was not sent).
17.5 The provisions of clauses 17.3 and 17.4 shall not apply to the service of any proceedings or other documents in any legal action.

17.6 These Terms together with the relevant Order constitute the entire agreement and understanding between the Parties and supersede and extinguish all previous agreements, promises, assurances, warranties, representations and understandings between them, whether written or oral, relating to their subject matter. To the extent of any conflict, these Terms will prevail over any terms you may put forward in an Order.

17.7 Nothing in these Terms shall be construed as creating a partnership, a joint venture, or the relationship of principal and agent between the Parties and neither Party shall have authority to act as agent for, or to bind the other Party, in any way.

17.8 Any person who is not Party to these Terms shall have no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any of these Terms. This does not affect any right or remedy of any person that exists or is available otherwise than pursuant to that Act.

17.9 We will not be liable or responsible for any failure or delay in performing our obligations under these Terms to the extent it is caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control. We will notify you as soon as reasonably possible if this happens.