PRIVACY NOTICE

Issued by Lerica Tax Accountants

Effective date – 25/05/2018

Introduction

David Reed Associates is an accountancy and tax advisory firm and believes strongly in protecting the privacy of our clients.

We collect personal information only when necessary and only retain this information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data

David Reed Associates Ltd is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR meaning that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. The firm’s contact details are as follows:

54D Frome Road
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire
BA15 1LA

We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. If we do so, any updates will be shown on our website.

The kind of information we may hold about you

The information we hold about you may include the following:

  • your personal details (for example your name, address, email address, IP address and other contact details);

  • details of contract we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision, of our services;

  • details of assets, earnings and tax liabilities, unique tax reference and NI number and other such information as obtained in the course of providing our services to you;

  • details of any services you have received from us;

  • our correspondence and communications with you;

  • information about any complaints and enquires you make to us.


How we collect personal data

We obtain personal data about you, for example, when;

  • you request a proposal from us in respect of the services we provide;

  • you engage us to provide our services and also during the provision of those services;

  • you contact us by email, telephone, post or via our website (for example when you have a query about our services); or

  • from third parties publicly available resources (for example, from your employer or from Companies House and HMRC).


The purpose for which we intend to process personal data

We intend to process personal data for the following purposes:

  • to enable us to supply professional services to you as our client;

  • to fulfil our obligations under relevant laws in force (e.g. the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017 (“MLR 2017”);

  • to comply with professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Association of Accounting Technicians;

  • to use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings; and

  • to enable us to invoice you for our services and investigate/address any fee disputes that may have arisen.


The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data

Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:

  • at the time you instructed us to act, you gave consent to our processing your personal data for the purposes listed above;

  • the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you;

  • the processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g. MLR 2017); and

  • the processing is necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests which we pursue, for example investigating/defending legal claims.

It is a requirement of our contract with you that you provide us with the personal data that we request. If you do not provide the information that we request, we may not be able to provide professional services to you. If this is the case, we will not be able to commence acting or will need to cease to act.

Persons/organisations to whom we may share personal data with

We may need to share your personal data with third parties identified below, in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you. If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties we may need to cease to act.

We may share your personal data with:

  • HMRC;

  • any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond;

  • subcontractors including third party service providers (for example IT and cloud services) (see below);

  • tax insurance providers;

  • professional indemnity insurers;

  • our professional bodies, as detailed above, and the office of Professional Body (OPBAS), Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation); and

  • other third parties, e.g. to obtain specific advice or in handing over to a new professional adviser. In these cases we would obtain your specific consent before sharing data.

If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may share your personal data with:

  • the police and law enforcement agencies;

  • courts and tribunals; and

  • the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”).

Sub-contractors

We may use sub-contractors to undertake specific elements of the agreed services and as a result we may provide personal information, provided to us by our clients, to these subcontractors. Before any data is provided to sub-contractors we will ensure:

  • the sub-contractor has the appropriate data security procedures;

  • we only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions; and

  • that personal data is only retained by the subcontractor for an appropriate period of time needed to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected.

Please contact us if you require links to our current subcontractors and their privacy policies.

Change of purpose

Where we need to use your personal data for another reason, other than the purpose for which we collected it, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Transferring personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We will not transfer the personal data we collect about you outside of the EEA.

The exception to this is when you yourself are outside of the EEA and we transfer data to you, and/or your local advisor, in the course of providing our services.

In this case we will only transfer data to you if you are in a country where there is an adequacy decision by the European Commission therefore they will be deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information for the purpose of the Data Protection Legalisation.

Retention of personal data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected.

When assessing what retention period is appropriate for your personal data, we take into consideration:

  • the requirements of our business and the services provided;

  • any statutory or legal obligations;

  • the purpose for which we originally collected the personal data;

  • the lawful grounds on which we based our processing;

  • the types of personal data we have collected;

  • the amount and categories of your personal data; and

  • whether the purpose of the processing could reasonably be fulfilled by other means.

You are responsible for retaining information that we send to you (including details of capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted) and this will be supplied in the form agreed between us. Documents and records relevant to your tax affairs are required by law to be retained by you as follows:

Individuals, trustees and partnerships

  • with trading or rental income: five years and ten months after the end of the tax year;

  • otherwise: Twenty two months after the end of the tax year.


Companies, LLP’s and other corporate entities

  • Six years from the end of the accounting period.

Where we act as a data processor as defined in DPA 2018, we will delete or return all personal data to the data controller as agreed with the controller.

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate and commercially reasonable security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees and other third party service providers who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Requesting personal data we hold about you (subject access requests)

You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as “subject access requests” (“SARs”).

Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention of Claire Swain.

To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:

  • your date of birth:

  • previous or other name(s) you have used:

  • your previous addresses in the past five years:

  • personal reference number(s) that we may have given you, for example your national insurance number, your tax reference number or your VAT registration number: and

  • what type of information you want to know.

If you do not have a national insurance number, you must send a copy of:

  • The back page of your passport, or a copy of your driving licence; and

  • A recent utility bill.

DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and in any event within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal date in response to a SAR (e.g. if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request).

We will not charge you for dealing with a SAR.

You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf, for example a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have you authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.

Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor (e.g. by processing payroll), we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.

Putting things right (the right to rectification)

You have a right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you that we hold. You also have a right to have any incomplete personal data that we hold about you completed. Should you become aware that any personal data that we hold about you is inaccurate and/or incomplete, please inform us immediately so we can correct and/or complete it.

Deleting your records (the right to erasure)

In certain circumstances you have a right to have the personal data that we hold about you erased. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). If you would like your personal data to be erased, please inform us immediately and we will consider your request. In certain circumstances we have the right to refuse to comply with a request for erasure. If applicable, we will supply you with the reasons for refusing your request.

The right to restrict processing and the right to object

In certain circumstances you have the right to ‘block’ or suppress the processing of personal data or to object to the processing of that information. Further information is available on the ICO website. Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or you object to processing so that we can consider what action, if any, is appropriate.

Obtaining and reusing personal data (the right to data portability)

In certain circumstances you have the right to be provided with the personal data that we hold about you in a machine readable format e.g. so that the data can easily be provided to a new professional adviser. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk).

The right to data portability only applies:

  • to personal data an individual has provided to a controller;

  • where the processing is based on the individuals consent or for the performance of a contract; and

  • when processing is carried out by automated means.

We will respond to any data portability requests made to us without undue delay and within one month. We may extend the period by a further two months where the request is complex or a number of requests are received but we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary.

Withdrawal of consent

Where you have consented to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please inform us immediately if you wish to withdraw your consent.

Please note:

  • the withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing:

  • if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to continue to provide services to you; and

  • even if you withdraw your consent, it may remain lawful for us to process your data on another legal basis (e.g. because we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data).


Automated decision-making

We do not intend to use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.

Complaints

If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can complain to us. Please send any complaints to Claire Swain, 54D Frome Road, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 1LA.

If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO. (www.ICO.org.uk).