PRIVACY POLICY

Introduction

Count On Us Accountancy Limited t/a Count On Us Accountancy is an accountancy firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number 16375787, and our registered office is at 167-169 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5PF

This policy will tell you how we look after your personal data, will tell you about your privacy rights, and about our compliance with and your protections under Data Protection Legislation.

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.

Count On Us Accountancy is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR, and we process personal data. If you have any questions regarding this policy or if you would like to speak to us about the manner in which we process your personal data, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact at info@countonusaccountancy.com or telephone our Data Protection Point of Contact on 0333 772 4353.

We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. If we do so, we will supply you with and/or otherwise make available to you a copy of the amended privacy notice.

Where we act as a data processor on behalf of a data controller (for example, when processing payroll), we provide an additional schedule setting out required information as part of that agreement. That additional schedule should be read in conjunction with this privacy notice.

The purposes 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 from time to time (e.g., the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 as amended (“MLR 2017”)).
To comply with professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of AAT.
To use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings, and legal proceedings.
To enable us to invoice you for our services and investigate/address any attendant fee disputes that may have arisen.
To contact you about other services we provide, which may be of interest to you if you have consented to us doing so.

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).
The processing is necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests, which we pursue. ALL legitimate interests relied upon, e.g., 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.

Categories of personal data collected

The information we hold about you may include the following:

Your personal details (such as your name and/or address);
Details of contact we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision, of our services;
Details of any services you have received from us;
Our correspondence and communications with you;
Information about any complaints and enquiries you make to us;
Information from research, surveys, and marketing activities.

Source of personal data collected

We obtain your personal data directly from you 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 social media (for example when you have a query about our services).

We may also obtain your personal data indirectly:

From our client when it engages us to provide services and also during the provision of those services;
From third parties and/or publicly available resources (for example, from Companies House).

Persons/organisations to whom we may give personal data

We may share your personal data with:

HMRC
any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond
subcontractors
an alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death
tax insurance providers
professional indemnity insurers
our professional body AAT and/or the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors (OPBAS) in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation)

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
the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

We may need to share your personal data with the third parties identified above 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.

TRANSFERRING PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE THE UNITED KINGDOM (UK)

We may transfer your personal data outside the United Kingdom (UK) and the EU jurisdictions to our affiliates or third-party service providers registered/incorporated outside the UK and the EU. In case of such a transfer:

The processing, including the transfer itself, of your personal data will continue to be carried out in accordance with the relevant provisions of the applicable data protection laws;
Throughout the duration of the personal data-processing, the data importer outside the UK will be instructed to process the personal data transferred only on our behalf and in accordance with the applicable data protection laws;
The data importer outside the UK will provide sufficient guarantees in respect of the technical and organisational security measures and assessment of the requirements of the applicable data protection laws will be made and your personal data will be transferred if the security measures are deemed adequate to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction or accidental loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access, in particular where the processing involves the transmission of data over a network, and against all other unlawful forms of processing, and that these measures ensure a level of security appropriate to the risks presented by the processing.
In the event of sub-processing of your personal data outside the UK, the processing activity will be carried out in accordance with the data protection laws, and the sub-processor will provide at least the same level of protection of your personal data as the data importer outside the UK.

Should you require further information about the protective measure[s], please contact us using the contact details outlined below.

Retention of personal data

When acting as a data controller and in accordance with recognised good practice within the tax and accountancy sector, we will retain all our records relating to you as follows:

Where tax returns have been prepared, it is our policy to retain information for 7 years from the end of the tax year to which the information relates.
Where ad hoc advisory work has been undertaken, it is our policy to retain information for 6 years from the date the business relationship ceased.
Where we have an ongoing client relationship, data which is needed for more than one year’s tax compliance (e.g. capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted to HMRC) is retained throughout the period of the relationship, but will be deleted 6 years after the end of the business relationship unless you as our client ask us to retain it for a longer period.
Our contractual terms provide for the destruction of documents after 6 years, and therefore agreement to the contractual terms is taken as agreement to the retention of records for this period, and to their destruction thereafter.

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 10 months after the end of the tax year;
otherwise: 22 months after the end of the tax year.

Companies, LLPs 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 at the termination of the contract.

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 the Data Protection Officer.

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
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 data 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 your 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 (www.ico.org.uk). Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or 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 individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract; and
when processing is conducted 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
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 info@countonusaccountancy.com.

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