Privacy Policy

This notice describes how we collect and use personal data about you, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and any other national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK (‘Data Protection Legislation’).

Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

ABOUT US

HW Tax and Accounting is an accountancy and tax advisory firm. Our office address is 10 Durfold Road, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 5HZ.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice, we are the ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

HOW WE MAY COLLECT YOUR 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 OR your employer OR our client engages us to provide our services and also during the provision of those services;
  • you contact us by email, telephone, post or a meeting; or
  • from third parties and/or publicly available resources (for example, from your employer).

 

THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU

The information we hold about you may include the following:

  • your personal details (such as your name, address, national insurance number, bank details and income details);
  • 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 we receive from other sources, such as information provided by your employer.

 

HOW WE USE PERSONAL DATA WE HOLD ABOUT YOU

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary for the performance of our contract with you OR your employer OR our clients and to comply with our legal obligations.

We may process your personal data for the purposes necessary for the performance of our contract with our clients. This may include processing your personal data where you are an employee, subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.

We may process your personal data for certain additional purposes with your consent, and in these limited circumstances where your consent is required for the processing of your personal data then you have the right to withdraw your consent to processing for such specific purposes.

Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

Specifically, 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 the Association of Taxation Technicians.
  • 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.

 

SITUATIONS IN WHICH WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We may use your personal data in order to:

  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you OR your employer OR our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services);
  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services) where you may be a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client;
  • seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide; and
  • notify you about any changes to our services.

In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use it without further notice to you.

If you refuse to provide us with certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you. Alternatively, we may be unable to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

We may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

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, The Association of Taxation Technicians 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 in order to comply with ourlegal 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.

 

DATA RETENTION

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 purposes 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 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 or at the termination of the contract.

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:

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.

CHANGE OF PURPOSE

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

Should it be necessary to use your personal data for a new purpose, we will notify you and communicate the legal basis which allows us to do so before starting any new processing.

DATA SHARING

We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

“Third parties” includes third-party service providers. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: IT and cloud services, professional advisory services, administration services and banking services.

All of our third-party service providers are required to take commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal data. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may share your personal data with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

TRANSFERRING PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA (EEA)

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

 DATA SECURITY

We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data 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.

RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us, using the contact details below.

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 Hannah Westcott.

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 from the last three months showing your address.
  • 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 (eg 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 (eg 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 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 individual’s 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.

If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please email our data protection point of contact: hannah@hwtaxandaccounting.co.uk

RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time and does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

 CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE

Any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future will be provided to you via an update on our website: www.hwtaxandaccounting.co.uk

This privacy notice was last updated on 02/12/2021.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions regarding this notice 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, Hannah Westcott, at hannah@hwtaxandaccounting.co.uk or telephone 07557 987911.

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 Hannah Westcott at the contact details shown in the introduction section above.

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

The ICO’s  contact details are as follows:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone – 0303 123 1113

Website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns

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