TaxEase UK Accountant Partner Agreement

1. Binding Agreement & Digital Signature

When you register as a partner through the TaxEase UK website, you are required to type your full legal name in the designated "Digital Signature" field and tick the declaration checkbox. If you register on behalf of a firm, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it. This action constitutes a legally binding electronic signature under the law of England and Wales, including section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions Regulations 2016.

At the moment of signature, TaxEase UK records: (a) your full name as typed, (b) your email address, (c) the name of your firm, (d) the date and time (UTC) of submission, (e) your IP address, (f) your browser user-agent string, and (g) the version number of this Agreement accepted.

At the same moment, TaxEase UK produces a PDF copy of the signed Agreement, containing this Agreement in full together with the details listed above. The PDF states the exact date and time of signature. It is sent to your email address, and a copy is retained by TaxEase UK with your account record. A cryptographic fingerprint (SHA-256) of the PDF is stored with your record, so that either party can show that the copy has not been altered since the moment of signature.

This record and the signed PDF together constitute conclusive evidence that you read and accepted this Agreement, in the version stated. They are retained for a minimum of 7 years.

2. Eligibility & Verification

The partner programme is open to accountancy and tax practices providing services to clients in the United Kingdom. At registration you must provide one of the following, which we check against the relevant public register:

• for a limited company, its Companies House registration number, and the company must be active;
• for a member of a professional body, your membership number with that body (ICAEW, ACCA, AAT, CIOT or CIMA); or
• for a sole trader supervised directly by HMRC for anti-money laundering purposes, your AML supervision registration number, which must appear on HMRC's published register of supervised businesses as an approved accountancy service provider.

You confirm that everything you provide at registration is true and complete. Providing a registration or supervision number that is false, or that is not yours, is a material breach of this Agreement, and your partner account will be suspended immediately.

You must remain supervised for anti-money laundering purposes, and hold any professional indemnity insurance your professional body or supervisor requires, for as long as this Agreement is in force. You must tell us within 14 days if your registration, membership or supervision ends or is suspended.

3. Approval, Plans & Billing

Registration does not by itself make you a partner. Your account becomes a partner account when we approve it. Once approved, and before you choose a paid plan, you may add up to 3 clients.

After approval you may choose one of the paid plans described in Schedule 1. Each plan sets how many clients you can manage and how many colleague accounts you can add. The plan and the price that apply to you are those shown to you at the point of purchase.

Paid plans are billed monthly and renew automatically every month until you cancel. Billing, cancellation and price changes follow section 20 of our Terms of Service. In particular, a price change applies only from your next renewal, and where the new price is higher we will tell you by email at least 30 days before that renewal.

4. Commission

4.1 Rate. You earn a commission on each purchase made by a client you brought to TaxEase UK, whether through your client invitation link or your partner referral code. The rate is stated in your partner dashboard and is 15% of the net purchase amount.

4.2 Renewals. Commission is earned on the client's first purchase and on each renewal of that client's subscription, for as long as the client's subscription continues and this Agreement remains in force. No commission is earned on purchases made after this Agreement ends.

4.3 Approved but unpaid. Commission is earned from approval onward, whether or not you have chosen a paid plan.

4.4 Confidentiality of the rate. The commission rate is confidential between you and TaxEase UK. You must not disclose it to your clients or publish it.

4.5 Priority over affiliates. Where a client is linked to you as their accountant, the commission for that client's purchases is paid to you, and not to any affiliate who also referred the same client.

4.6 When commission is earned. Commission is earned only on completed purchases that have not been reversed. TaxEase UK does not offer refunds (see section 20 of our Terms of Service). If a payment is nevertheless reversed, for example because the client's bank or card issuer upholds a chargeback, the commission for that payment is cancelled.

4.7 Cancelled commissions are shown to you. Every cancelled commission is shown in your partner dashboard, with the client's email address, the date and the amount of the purchase concerned, and you are notified of it by email, so that you can always see why your balance has changed.

4.8 When commission is paid. Commission accumulates in your dashboard balance. Once your balance reaches £20.00, payment is sent automatically every Monday via Stripe to your connected Stripe account. Balances below £20.00 roll over to the following week(s). To receive payments you must connect a Stripe account from your dashboard.

4.9 Commission already paid. If a commission is cancelled after it has already been paid to you, the amount is deducted from your future commissions, and your balance may be negative until it is recovered.

4.10 Tax. You are responsible for reporting and paying any tax due on commission you receive.

5. Your Practice and Your Clients

TaxEase UK is software. It helps your clients organise and enter their information in their own language, and helps you receive it in a structured form. It does not provide tax advice, and it does not prepare, approve or file a tax return on anyone's behalf.

You remain solely responsible for the professional services you provide to your clients, including reviewing any information before relying on it, the advice you give, the returns you prepare or file, and your own professional, regulatory and anti-money laundering obligations, such as client identification and engagement letters.

Where a client signs a declaration in the client portal that the figures they entered are correct, we record it with the date, time and IP address recorded by our server at the moment of signature, and make it available to you.

If your plan includes colleague accounts, each colleague uses their own login. You are responsible for what your colleagues do in your partner account.

6. Verified Accountants Directory

Listing in the Verified Accountants Directory is optional and is governed by sections 11 and 13 of our Terms of Service, including what information is shown, what the "✓ TaxEase UK Verified" badge means and does not mean, and how to have a listing removed.

7. Client Data

7.1 Who decides what. For the personal data you enter or receive in the client portal about your clients (the "Portal Data"), you are the controller and TaxEase UK processes it on your behalf as your processor. For data we collect for our own purposes, such as a client's own TaxEase UK account, their licence and payment, and the calculation of your commission, TaxEase UK is the controller, under our Privacy Policy.

7.2 Details of the processing are set out in Schedule 2: the subject matter and duration, the nature and purpose, the types of personal data and the categories of people it concerns.

7.3 Our obligations as your processor. In relation to the Portal Data, TaxEase UK will:

• (a) process it only on your documented instructions, including those given by your use of the client portal, unless UK law requires otherwise, in which case we will tell you before processing unless the law forbids it;
• (b) ensure that anyone we allow to process it is under a duty of confidentiality;
• (c) take the security measures required by Article 32 of the UK GDPR;
• (d) use sub-processors only as set out in 7.4;
• (e) help you, by appropriate technical and organisational measures, to respond to requests from individuals exercising their data protection rights;
• (f) help you meet your obligations on security, notifying personal data breaches to the ICO and to the people concerned, and data protection impact assessments, and tell you without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting the Portal Data;
• (g) at the end of this Agreement, at your choice, return the Portal Data to you (for example as the CSV or PDF exports available in your dashboard) or delete it, and delete existing copies unless UK law requires us to keep them. Copies in backups are put beyond use and deleted in the normal backup cycle; and
• (h) give you the information you need to show that these obligations are met, and allow for and contribute to reasonable audits and inspections by you or an auditor you appoint, on reasonable notice.

7.4 Sub-processors. You give general authorisation for TaxEase UK to use the sub-processors listed in Schedule 2. We will tell you by email of any intended addition or replacement at least 14 days in advance, and you may object. If you object and we cannot reasonably accommodate the objection, you may end this Agreement under section 10. We impose on each sub-processor data protection obligations equivalent to those in this section, and we remain responsible to you for their compliance.

7.5 Your obligations. You confirm that you have a lawful basis to enter your clients' personal data into the client portal and that you have told your clients that you use TaxEase UK for this purpose.

8. Confidentiality

Each party will keep confidential any non-public information it receives from the other under this Agreement, including the commission rate, and will use it only for the purposes of this Agreement. This does not apply to information that is already public, or that must be disclosed by law.

9. Prohibited Conduct

You must not:

• claim that TaxEase UK submits tax returns to HMRC, or that it is approved by HMRC or endorsed by any UK government body. HMRC production access for Making Tax Digital is pending;
• claim that TaxEase UK provides tax advice or replaces a professional accountant;
• advertise a price for a TaxEase UK product different from the current official price on taxeaseuk.com;
• send unsolicited marketing, or use automated traffic, to generate client purchases; or
• create client accounts, invitations or purchases that do not correspond to a real client relationship.

10. Termination

You may end this Agreement at any time by cancelling your plan, or by emailing hello@taxeaseuk.com. Cancelling a paid plan takes effect at the end of the billing period already paid, under section 20 of our Terms of Service.

TaxEase UK may suspend or end your partner account, with or without notice, if you materially breach this Agreement, including under section 2.

When this Agreement ends:

• your access to the partner dashboard and client portal ends;
• commissions earned before the end, and not reversed, are paid on the next scheduled payout, provided the £20.00 threshold is met;
• no commission is earned on purchases made after the end; and
• the Portal Data is returned or deleted under 7.3(g).

11. Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• TaxEase UK is not liable for any loss of income or profit, loss of clients, or indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the partner programme;
• TaxEase UK is not liable for the professional services you provide to your clients, or for any tax return prepared or filed by you or your clients;
• TaxEase UK's total liability to you for any claim under this Agreement shall not exceed the total fees you paid to TaxEase UK in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing in this Agreement limits any liability that cannot be limited by law, or either party's liability under data protection law to the extent that law does not permit it to be limited.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify TaxEase UK against claims, losses and reasonable legal costs arising from (a) your breach of this Agreement, (b) any advice or professional service you provide to your clients, or (c) any claim by one of your clients arising from your acts or omissions.

13. Changes to this Agreement

We may change this Agreement. You will be notified by email at least 14 days before a material change takes effect. Continued participation after that date constitutes acceptance of the new version.

Every version of this Agreement is retained. A new version is added alongside the previous ones, never in place of them, and each is published with the dates it was in force.

14. Independent Parties

You are an independent business, not an employee, agent or legal representative of TaxEase UK. You have no authority to make promises or accept liability on our behalf.

15. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

This Agreement is governed exclusively by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising from or related to it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. If any provision is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force and effect.

Schedule 1: Partner Plans

As at the date of this version. Prices are the total amount payable in pounds sterling; TaxEase UK Ltd is not currently registered for VAT.

• Approved, no paid plan: £0; up to 3 clients; no colleague accounts.
• Essential Partner: £49 per month; up to 15 clients; no colleague accounts.
• Senior Partner: £89 per month; up to 70 clients; 2 colleague accounts.
• Enterprise / Agency: £199 per month; unlimited clients; 5 colleague accounts.

Schedule 2: Processing of Portal Data

Subject matter. The client portal through which you invite clients, and your clients enter and send you the information for their UK tax return.

Duration. For as long as this Agreement is in force, and afterwards until the Portal Data is returned or deleted under 7.3(g).

Nature and purpose. Storage, display, translation of messages, transmission between you and your clients, and export, for the purpose of your preparation of your clients' UK tax returns.

Types of personal data. Name; email address; Unique Taxpayer Reference; National Insurance number; the tax year being prepared; the status of the return; the income and expense figures entered; messages exchanged between you and the client; where signed, the client's declaration that the figures are correct, with the date, time and IP address recorded by our server.

Categories of people. Your clients who are invited to, or use, the client portal; your colleagues who use your partner account.

Sub-processors.

• Supabase: database and file storage. Location: European Union (Frankfurt, Germany).
• Vercel: web hosting. Location: United Kingdom (London).
• Google (Gmail, Google Workspace): sending, and keeping copies of, invitation and notification emails. Location: Google's global infrastructure, including the United States.
• Google (Cloud Translation): translating messages between you and your client. Location: Google's global infrastructure; the text is held only briefly in memory to perform the translation.
• Cloudflare (R2): weekly encrypted backups of the database, which include the Portal Data. Location: Western Europe.