Our Terms and Conditions

1. CLIENT ENGAGEMENT TERMS & CONDITIONS

This client serves to confirm our understanding of the terms and conditions of objectives of our engagement and the nature and scope of the service(s) that we will provide the client with tax and accounting documents as required by Law by either a SARS recognised tax practitioner; Tax Professional or Professional Accountants as registered with SAIT & SAIPA.

2. PERIOD OF ENGAGEMENT

This engagement will commence upon acceptance of our quotation and we will deal with either or both the client’s accounting or tax matters arising in respect of year(s) prior to and the tax current year, and will expire on the same date as the “valid and original” SARS Power of Attorney expires, as agreed between the tax payer and the company

3. SCOPES OF SERVICES

We will prepare the client’s accounting records and or SARS tax return (s) and/ or company provisional income tax return (s) and other business related tax types such as Dividends Tax; VAT; Payroll Taxes, Capital Gains Tax and any supplementary tax returns issued by SARS together with supporting schedules as deemed appropriate.

We will send via email either or both your tax preparation for your company income tax return to you prior to for approval and your signature. Only after we have received your signed tax return(s) back from you by email, will the tax practitioner submit these required tax return(s) to South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) via the Efiling system.

The work performed will be based at the interpretation of current tax law. These tax Laws are subject to change occasioned by future legislative amendments and court decisions. You are cautioned to keep abreast of such developments and you are welcome to engage our service for this purpose.

We will advise you as to the amount of tax that is to be paid to SARS and the deadline date(s) for these submissions and/ or payments to SARS.

We will deal with SARS regarding any amendments required on your tax return(s) and prepare these amended tax return(s), as these may be required by you, the taxpayer.

We will advise as to any possible claims and elections arising from the tax return (s) and from information which is supplied by you, the taxpayer. Where instructed by you, we will make such claims and elections in the form and manner required by SARS.

We will deal with all communications relating to your tax return (s) which may need to be addressed or yourself by SARS. However, should SARS choose your return for verification or audit, this work will be deemed as a separate engagement, in which case we will require further instruction and payment from yourself.

4. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES: INFORMATION AND DOCUMENTS

The taxpayer is legally responsible for submitting their correct personal tax return(s) by the due date and making payment of these taxes payable to SARS. Failure to meet these requirements and deadlines will result in penalties and/or interest imposed by SARS on the taxpayer.

To enable us to carry out our tax service(s) diligently you agree to:

• Provide us with full disclosure of all your sources of your income, tax deductible expenses, allowances, financial and capital transactions during the tax year for which the appropriate tax return (s);
• Provide any additional documentation such as your personal Balance Sheet; Annual Income and Expenditure Statement and Annual Financial Statements with any additional supporting documentation that may be required by the tax practitioner to prepare the tax return(s) as is required by SARS
• to provide full information that is necessary for the dealing with your tax affairs: we will rely on this information and documents being true, correct and complete and will not audit the information or those documents;
• that we will not approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we consider necessary to deal with your tax affairs;
• to provide us with information and documents within sufficient time for the company’s returns to be prepared and submitted by the due dates; in order to meet this date, you agree to provide us with all relevant information within 10 (ten) working days prior to submitting such returns;
• to forward to us on receipt copies of all SARS statements of account, notices of assessment, letters and other communications received from SARS to you without delay, to enable us to deal with SARS as deemed necessary within the statutory time limits;
• To keep us informed in writing about significant transaction(s) or change(s) in your circumstances if this is likely to affect your current or future tax position.
• Complete and duly sign the Special SARS Power of Attorney for Practitioners form

5. OTHER SERVICES AND GENERAL TAX ADVICE

We will assist you generally in accounting and tax matters if so required however to enable us to assist you further, timeous notification is required.

Due to tax rules and governing tax Acts frequently changing, you need to ask us to review any advice already given if a transaction is delayed, or if an apparently similar transaction is to be undertaken.

It is our policy to confirm, in writing, any tax advice upon which you may wish to rely.

All advice given is for you to make your own conclusions.  In the event that advice is given it will be of a general nature, and it remains your responsibility to obtain specialists services if we are unable to assist.

Should additional services and advice be required; a separate engagement letter will be issued.

6. TAX ADMINISTRATION ACT 2011 (AS AMENDED)

The Tax Administration Act 2011 (as amended) (referred to as TAA) was implemented by SARS on the 1 October 2012 and governs the way the various Tax Acts are governed and how these rules by applied by SARS. The TAA is continuously being amended in all aspects. Please communicate with us prior to engaging in any transactions that may have an effect on your financial situation and tax affairs. Full disclosure is the onus of the taxpayer not the tax practitioner.

In terms of Section 241 of the TAA (Tax Administration Act, as amended), the practitioner will be presumed to have exercised due diligence for purposes of this section of the practitioner relies on the work product of another person and evaluation the person, taking proper account of the nature of the relationship between the practitioner and the person

7 . OUTSOURCED / EXCLUDED SERVICES

The pricing according to the scope of this engagement letter excludes these following services, which are outsourced and excluded services listed below and is quoted separately by us.

             Outsourced Services

• Legal Taxation Representation to the Tax Court or any Civil Court

We will be pleased to assist with and give advice on these and any other tax matters, if so requested.

8. THE INFORMATION GATHERING POWERS BY SARS

SARS entitled to gather additional information from third parties

• SARS may direct a request for information to a taxpayer or another person, typically a third party that has information about the taxpayer, to provide information to SARS.
• The request for information may only be used to obtain relevant material
• The request for information is limited to the records maintained or that should reasonably be maintained by a person

The taxpayer hereby grants Shamu Bookkeeping Services (Pty) Ltd and its tax practitioner(s) permission to divulge to SARS on the taxpayer’s behalf any information that as required by the Legislation that may be deemed necessary to assist with SARS appropriate query or investigation. In the event that SARS requests an interview with the tax payer on materials provided, both any employee of Shamu Bookkeeping Services (Pty) Ltd and the SARS tax practitioner will be excluded from this requirement as only the tax payer will be interviewed by SARS. 

9. SARS PENALTIES AND INTEREST

The onus is on the taxpayer to take the degree of care that a reasonable, ordinary person in the circumstances of the taxpayer would take to fulfil his or her tax obligations.  SARS may raise penalties or interest for non- compliance to deadlines which are applicable to your tax return (s)

The taxpayer is solely liable for all forms of penalties and interest raised by SARS against the taxpayer.

10. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF ENGAGEMENT

Our services are subject to the terms and conditions of engagement attached hereto and all Annexure(s), which is an integral part of this agreement.

We would appreciate confirmation of your agreement to this letter, by signing and returning the enclosed copy.

If this engagement letter is not in accordance with your understanding of the scope of our engagement, please confirm.

This engagement letter in in type form and any hand-written annotations or amendments will deem this engagement letter not accepted by all parties and deemed not valid.

Upon the taxpayer not accepting this engagement letter, the tax practitioner, reserves his sole right to terminate or suspend all tax matters with the taxpayer without any recourse or prejudice to the tax practitioner or Shamu Bookkeeping Services (Pty) Ltd.

We look forward to full cooperation from you and we trust that any documentation, records and other information which may be requested, will be made readily available to us at all times.

We will observe the professional rules and guidelines of our Professional Institute(s) and accept instructions to act for you on the basis that we will act in accordance with these rules and guidelines.

11. CLIENT MONIES

We will not at any point in time hold money on your behalf.

12. RETENTION OF COMPANY RECORDS

During the course of our work we will gather information and documents from you and others acting on your behalf.  You should retain them for a period of least 5 (five) years from the date of submission of your returns.  This period may be reviewed by the TAA for SARS to make any further enquiries into your financial and tax affairs.

Whilst certain documents may legally belong to you, we intend to destroy correspondence and other paperwork which has been stored as per the Tax Administration Act 2011, other than documents which we consider to be of continuing significance.  We need to be advised of any particular retention of documents you may require.

13. REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS

We reserve the right to disclose our files to regulatory bodies in the exercise of their powers.

14. QUALITY OF SERVICE

We aim to provide a high standard of service at all times.  If you would like to discuss with us on any improvements or dissatisfaction of our services, suggestions are welcome.

We undertake to address any complaint on your behalf and promptly advise you accordingly.

15. CONFIDENTIALITY

We will undertake to not disclosing details of the taxpayer’s affairs to any third parties. The taxpayer must inform us if the taxpayer has claimed “legal professional privilege” in respect of their tax affairs

We will only disclose details in the following circumstances to third parties when this:

• Is permitted by Law or authorised by the taxpayer or
• Is required by Law – Subpoena; or terms of Legislation or
• Is in terms of our professional rights or professional duties by our professional body

16. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

We will observe the professional rules and guidelines of our professional Institute and accept instructions to act for you on the basis that we will act in accordance with those guidelines

17. FEES

All quotations, issued for any our services are only valid for 7 (seven) calendar days from date of issue.

All fees quoted and relating to any backlog services or tax matters or statutory returns and SARS registrations is deemed to be an additional or excluded service. Is payable in full and in advance prior to commencement of the task

Our fees are calculated on the basis of fees levied for the time spent on your tax affairs (which depend on the levels of skill, risk and accountability involved) and disbursements incurred in connection with the engagement.  If work is required which is outside the scope of this letter, for example dealing with SARS audit or verification of the tax return, this will have deemed as a separate engagement for which additional fees will be charged.  Value Added Tax will be levied on the account at the current ruling rate as determined by the Vat Act. All our fees quoted are exclusive of VAT.

Our invoices, if presented to the client, is all payable on presentation.  All invoices older than 7 (seven) calendar days from date of issue will be deemed as overdue and will attract additional interest rate of the current ruling prime interest rate plus 4% (four percent) on the outstanding daily balance on your account with us.

Should the taxpayer fail to pay our quote or invoice in full, it will be deemed as an “unpaid”. A quote/invoice is only deemed as “paid” when the funds are reflected in our Nedbank bank account.

Tax work will only be commenced by the tax practitioner on behalf of the taxpayer when the quote/ invoice be deemed by us to be “paid”.

We may pause or terminate this engagement and cease acting on your behalf, should any payments of our fees billed are unduly delayed.  However, it is not our intention to use these arrangements in a way which is unfair or unreasonable to the taxpayer.

Should at any time during the preparation of the tax return(s) or tax assessment the tax practitioner find information that was not originally billed for, the tax practitioner reserves the sole right to raise an additional VAT invoice (for time spent) arising from the additional scope of work or to terminate the engagement without any recourse, all rights reserved.

18. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

The advice which we give to you are for your sole use only and do not constitute advice to any third parties.

We will not be held liable to you or any cessionary or third party claiming through or on your behalf for any punitive damages whatsoever or for any consequential or other loss or damages beyond the maximum liability specified.

We will provide the tax professional services outlined in this letter with reasonable care and skill. Our advice will be based on interpretation of the law and experience with SARS and other bodies.  Therefore, the conclusions reached and views expressed will often be matters of opinion rather than of certainty and we cannot warrant that SARS will necessarily reach the same conclusions.  We will not be responsible for any losses, penalties, interest or additional tax liabilities arising from incorrect or incomplete information or  your  failure  to  act  on  our  advice  or  respond  promptly  to communications from us or the Authorities.

19. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Email communication is admissible as governed by the Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005. Our emails are free of any viruses and are protected ESET internet Security software; however, as with other means of delivery this carries with it the risk of inadvertent misdirection or non-delivery.  It is the responsibility of the recipient to carry out a check on any attachments received.  No verbal instructions are acceptable.

As internet communications are capable of data corruption we do not accept any responsibility for changes made to such communications after their despatch.    For this reason, it may be inappropriate to rely on advice contained in an e-mail without obtaining written confirmation thereof.  All risks connected with sending commercially-sensitive information relating to your business are borne by you and is not our responsibility.  If you do not accept this risk, you should notify us in writing that e-mail communication is unacceptable.

20. SARS E-FILING

We will act as your E Filer and duly authorised agent on the SARS E Filing system. Please be advised that SARS has forced us to use of their E Filing system to submit your tax return to them. We now require your mandate to act on your behalf so that Shamu Bookkeeping Services (Pty) Ltd and our SARS recognised tax practitioner to act as your agent and as E Filer on your behalf. The terms and conditions to E Filing as found on the SARS E Filing website as well as those listed below apply:

• The SARS practitioner and E Filer will act as duly authorised agent on your behalf
• The E Filer will digitally sign all your tax return (s) upon submission of that return (s) to SARS
• You will be liable to SARS for the due and timeous fulfilment of all your obligations to SARS
• Any information submitted by the tax practitioner to SARS will be based on information received from you and you are responsible for ensuring that the information in the return is both true and correct
• All tax return (s) submitted to SARS must be signed in full on each page of the applicable tax return;
• Only upon our receipt of your signed tax return will submit the tax return to SARS
• The assessment (s) issued by SARS and letter(s) relating to the tax return(s) will be forwarded to the taxpayer by the agent, should the agent have received the correspondence via the E Filing website
• These terms and conditions may change from time to time as they are updated on the SARS E Filing website

21. APPLICABLE LAW

This engagement letter is governed by South African law and any claims will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of South Africa.

Any claims, howsoever arising, need to be commenced formally by service of a court summons or process initiating arbitration proceedings within two years after the claimant becomes aware (or ought reasonably to have become aware) of the facts which give rise to the claim and, in any event regardless of the knowledge of the claimant, by no later than three years after the date of any alleged breach giving rise to a cause of action.  This expressly overrides any statutory provision which would otherwise apply.