Taxbax
Engagement TRFA-LOE-2026-01
Taxbax
Engagement TRFA-LOE-2026-01
What is happening
Taxbax has partnered with TR Forensic Accountants Ltd, who will now prepare and submit HMRC tax refund claims. To let them pick your claim up, they need you to sign their letter of engagement.
TR Forensic Accountants have your signed engagement and will be in touch about your claim. A copy is on its way to your email.
You can still cancel free of charge within 14 days by emailing tax@trfa.co.uk.
Your reference:
This is the document you are signing. Read it before you sign — scroll inside the box for the whole thing.
Letter of Engagement and Important Notice — Your HMRC Tax Refund Claim, previously handled by Taxbax
We are writing to you as a valued customer of Taxbax Limited (company number 16066681), of 253 Monton Road, Eccles, Manchester M30 9PS (“Taxbax”), regarding your HMRC tax refund claim.
TR Forensic Accountants Ltd is an accountancy practice regulated for accountancy services and supervised for anti-money laundering purposes, whose principal is a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT). TR Forensic Accountants Ltd has entered into a formal partnership with Taxbax and has acquired the administration of Taxbax's HMRC tax refund claims business. Under this arrangement, TR Forensic Accountants Ltd is the appointed claims processing partner and will prepare, submit and manage HMRC tax refund claims for Taxbax customers, and will handle all related correspondence with HMRC, on the terms set out in this letter.
This means that, going forward, your claim will be processed by TR Forensic Accountants Ltd. This letter, once signed, forms a direct engagement between you and TR Forensic Accountants Ltd and replaces, in respect of the services described below, any terms you previously agreed with Taxbax. If you do not wish TR Forensic Accountants Ltd to process your claim, you do not need to do anything: no claim will be submitted on your behalf and no fee will be charged unless and until you sign and return this letter. You may also object to the transfer of your personal data as described in section 9.
You instruct us to review your entitlement to, and to prepare and submit to HMRC, claims for repayment of overpaid income tax, which depending on your circumstances may include: mileage allowance relief; uniform, work clothing and tool allowances (flat rate expenses); professional fees and subscriptions; working from home allowance; marriage allowance; and other employment-related expenses and reliefs identified from the information you provide.
We will use the information already held in your Taxbax file, together with a questionnaire and any further information we request from you, to prepare the appropriate claim(s), submit them to HMRC, deal with HMRC correspondence, and account to you for any refund received. On conclusion we will report to you in writing the outcome of each claim, the refund obtained, our fee and the net amount due to you.
By signing this letter you authorise TR Forensic Accountants Ltd (not Taxbax) to act as your agent and nominee with HMRC, including registration as your agent (form 64-8), and you agree to sign a deed of assignment/nomination under which TR Forensic Accountants Ltd is nominated to receive and process your tax refund. Any authority previously granted to Taxbax as your agent will be superseded for the claims covered by this letter. Once our instruction is received, we have the right to deal exclusively with the claim; please direct all correspondence about your claim to us and not to Taxbax or directly to HMRC without consulting us first.
Our work will commence once we receive your signed instruction and the information we request, and is contingent on that information being provided. Claims are typically submitted to HMRC within 10 working days of receiving complete information; HMRC processing typically takes 8–12 weeks but can take longer and is outside our control. This is a one-off engagement per claim/tax year and is not recurring (see section 6).
This engagement is provided on a “No Win, No Fee” contingency basis: no fee will be charged to you in respect of an unsuccessful claim. Where a claim is successful, TR Forensic Accountants Ltd will charge a contingency fee of 30% plus VAT of any refund recovered on your behalf, or £65.00, whichever is the greater. This fee replaces and supersedes any commission rate previously agreed with Taxbax; you will not be charged twice, and no separate fee is payable by you to Taxbax for the claims covered by this letter.
Our fee is calculated on the gross amount of any refund, rebate, repayment, compensation or goodwill payment recovered from HMRC on your behalf, before any deduction. VAT is charged in addition at the prevailing rate (currently 20%). Under no circumstances will you be required to pay more than the amount of the refund received.
Worked example:
Tax refund received from HMRC: £1,000.00
Our fee at 30%: £300.00
VAT at 20%: £60.00
Total fee (fee + VAT): £360.00
You receive: £640.00
Worked example — refund equal to or below the minimum fee:
Tax refund received from HMRC: £65.00
Minimum fee charged: £65.00
You receive: £0.00
Where the value of the refund received from HMRC falls below £65.00, we will limit our fee to the total amount of the refund received. We will not ask you to pay any additional charge and the claim will be closed.
If HMRC pays a refund directly to you as a result of a claim we have made on your behalf, you must inform us immediately and our fee becomes due and payable within 14 days of your receipt of that payment. If disclosure is not received within a reasonable timescale, our fee will be calculated on the claim amount received or disclosed within the financial year to which the claim relates. It will be determined that a refund has been paid directly to you if HMRC informs us that this is the case and/or we have not received an outcome from HMRC within 9 months of submitting your claim and you have not disclosed otherwise.
If a fee remains unpaid after presentation of our invoice, we will issue reminders and may suspend further work. Where we are forced to take court action or appoint a debt collection agency to recover outstanding monies, we reserve the right to increase the amount owed by an amount equivalent to the reasonable cost of that recovery. A court may also award additional costs and/or statutory interest at the rate of 8% above the Bank of England base rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 or, for consumers, interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate from the due date until payment. If you do not accept that an invoiced fee is fair and reasonable, you must notify us within 21 days of receipt, failing which you will be deemed to have accepted that payment is due.
All correspondence, telephone, postal and incidental costs are included in our fee. No taxes or charges other than the fee and VAT described above are payable by you to us.
You remain legally responsible for your own tax affairs. We act only as your agent. You are responsible for ensuring that the information on which any claim is based is correct and complete. You cannot delegate this legal responsibility to us.
To enable us to carry out our work, you agree:
Responsibility for the prevention and detection of irregularities and fraud rests with you. Our work is not designed to identify fraud or other irregularities and this is outside the scope of this engagement; you are nevertheless obliged to provide us with full and accurate information.
You understand that we are in no way responsible for any incorrect information you provide and that you take full responsibility for it. We will not be responsible for any losses, penalties, surcharges, interest or additional tax or other liabilities arising from the supply by you or others of incorrect or incomplete information, or from your or others' failure to supply appropriate information, or from your failure to act on our advice or respond promptly to communications from us or from HMRC.
We will provide the services described in this letter with reasonable care and skill, in accordance with the ethical and professional standards of our professional bodies. We will use reasonable endeavours to obtain the maximum refund to which you are legally entitled based on the information and documentation you provide and in line with UK tax law.
Once your instruction has been received, we have the right to deal exclusively with the claim unless otherwise agreed in writing between you and us. Any contact you make directly with HMRC regarding a claim we are progressing should first be discussed with us so that the claim is not prejudiced.
We will promptly notify you if we decide not to pursue your claim and cancel this agreement. If the claim is unsuccessful, we will endeavour to inform you. We may decide that we are unable to continue to act for you where, for example, we cannot obtain clear instructions from you, we believe the claim will not succeed, or we have been given misleading instructions or information. We reserve the right to refuse to process any claim.
We are not responsible for the refusal of a refund or the rejection of a claim where: (a) you have provided information that is false, incorrect, inaccurate, insufficient or misleading in any way; (b) you have already applied for and/or received a refund of tax prior to making a claim with us; (c) you owe money to HMRC; or (d) HMRC holds information that is different to that provided by you.
If HMRC determines that a refund has been made incorrectly and requires it to be repaid, we are under no obligation to refund our fee, although where possible we will consider doing so. You remain responsible for repaying any overpaid refund to HMRC.
We will not accept responsibility if you act on advice given by us on an earlier occasion without first confirming with us that the advice is still valid in the light of any change in the law, practice, public policy or your circumstances. We accept no liability for losses arising from changes in the law or its interpretation that are first published after the date on which advice is given.
You have the right to cancel this agreement within 14 days of the date of your instruction without giving any reason and without incurring any fee, in accordance with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. You may cancel by writing to us by post or by email at tax@trfa.co.uk. Where you have expressly requested that we begin work within the cooling-off period and a refund offer is received from HMRC within that period, the claim is deemed successful and our fee will apply.
After the cooling-off period, either you or we may terminate this agreement in writing at any time. You acknowledge that once a claim has been successful, or you receive any benefit from instructing us to bring a claim, you will be liable to pay the fee set out in section 3, and termination following such success will still incur that fee. A claim is deemed successful when we receive an offer of refund from HMRC.
This engagement relates to the specific claim(s) and tax year(s) identified in your instruction. It is not a recurring annual engagement and will not continue automatically, although we may contact you about further claims to which you may be entitled. Once agreed, this letter remains effective for the claims covered by it until it is replaced or terminated.
We may, from time to time, hold money on your behalf — in particular refunds received from HMRC before deduction of our fee and payment of the balance to you. Such money will be held in a separate client bank account with Lloyds Bank, segregated from the firm's own funds. The account is operated, and all funds are dealt with, in accordance with the Clients' Money Regulations of our professional body.
The balance due to you will normally be paid to your nominated bank account within 3–4 weeks of cleared receipt from HMRC, or upon your demand. Before releasing funds relating to a successful claim we will carry out identity verification checks, as required by HMRC and by the Money Laundering Regulations.
To avoid disproportionate administration, interest will only be paid to you where the interest earned on balances held on your behalf in any calendar year exceeds £250 and the claim value exceeds £1,000; no interest is payable on claim values of £999 or less. Where the sums held are sufficient to give rise to a significant amount of interest, the money will be placed in a separate designated interest-bearing client account and all interest earned will be paid to you gross, subject to tax legislation.
We will return monies held on your behalf promptly as soon as there is no longer any reason to retain them. Our team will attempt to contact you by telephone, email and post using the details you registered with us, and a record of all contact attempts is retained on our practice management system. In the unlikely event that monies remain unclaimed and we have been unable to trace you for at least five years despite taking reasonable steps, we reserve the right to pay such monies (up to £10,000 per client, or above that amount only against an indemnity) to a registered charity in line with the Clients' Money Regulations of our professional body. On cessation of practice, any payment of unclaimed client money to a registered charity will be notified to our regulatory authority in writing together with the client's name, last known contact details and the sum paid.
As the firm is controlled by a single principal, we have appointed an alternate to administer the client bank account and to deal with client matters in the event of the death, incapacity or prolonged illness of the principal, in accordance with the continuity of practice requirements of our professional body. The alternate will have access to your information held by us solely in order to make initial contact with you and agree the work to be undertaken during any period of incapacity; you may choose to appoint another firm or accountant at that stage if you wish.
In common with other professional services firms, we are required by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) to maintain identification procedures for clients, beneficial owners of clients and persons purporting to act on behalf of clients; to undertake client risk assessments; to maintain records of identification evidence and the work undertaken; and to report, in accordance with the relevant legislation and regulations, any reasonable knowledge or suspicion of money laundering to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
We use an electronic verification provider (Credit Safe) to carry out anti-money laundering checks before engaging with you, and we will ask you for identification documents. We reserve the right to decline to provide services if identity cannot be satisfactorily verified or the AML check is failed. If we are not able to obtain satisfactory evidence of your identity, we will not be able to proceed with the engagement.
Any report to the NCA must be made in the strictest confidence, and neither the firm's principals nor staff may enter into any correspondence or discussion with you regarding such matters. Any personal data received from you to comply with our obligations under the MLR 2017 will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering or terrorist financing, unless another use is permitted by law or you consent to the proposed use.
Transfer of your data from Taxbax: as part of the partnership and acquisition arrangement described in section 1, Taxbax will transfer to us the personal data it holds in connection with your tax refund claim (including your name, contact details, date of birth, National Insurance number, employment and income details and claim history). This transfer is made under a written data sharing agreement between Taxbax and TR Forensic Accountants Ltd and takes place on the lawful basis of legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)) in connection with the transfer of a business, and, once you sign this letter, the performance of our contract with you. You have the right to object to this transfer at any time by contacting us at tax@trfa.co.uk or Taxbax at hello@taxbax.co.uk; if you object before signing this letter, your data will not be further processed by us and will be deleted from our systems.
Respective responsibilities: Taxbax and TR Forensic Accountants Ltd are each independent data controllers of your personal data in respect of their own processing. Taxbax remains solely responsible for the security and lawfulness of all processing of your personal data before its transfer to us and within Taxbax's own systems at any time, including any personal data breach occurring in or arising from Taxbax's systems, websites, marketing activities or records. TR Forensic Accountants Ltd is responsible only for personal data from the point it is received into our systems, and accepts no liability for any breach, loss, or unauthorised access, disclosure or processing occurring within Taxbax's systems or control, or prior to the transfer of your data to us.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a data controller under registration number [ICO registration number]. We are committed to ensuring the protection and privacy of personal data and we comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (together, the “Data Protection Legislation”).
To provide the services in this letter we will collect and process personal data including your name, contact details, date of birth, address, employment and work address details, National Insurance number, income and employment history, marital status and payment/bank details. We process this data in order to: assess, prepare, submit and manage your HMRC tax refund claim(s); process your electronically signed authorisations (including HMRC form 64-8 and any deed of assignment or nomination); verify your identity and comply with our legal obligations (including the MLR 2017); administer our contract with you and collect fees; and communicate with you about your claim. Our lawful bases are the performance of our contract with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and our legitimate interests in administering our practice. We will not use your data for marketing without your consent, and we will not sell your data.
We will implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, protecting your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access. We use secure, access-controlled systems (including our practice management system, Zoho CRM) to hold identification evidence and client records. Where we use external or cloud-based systems or subcontractors, your data will be protected by written agreements imposing confidentiality and data protection obligations substantially equivalent to our own, and we remain responsible to you for our appointed sub-processors. We will not transfer your personal data outside the United Kingdom unless appropriate safeguards required by the Data Protection Legislation are in place.
We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, and thereafter as required for record-keeping under applicable law (including the MLR 2017, which requires identification records to be kept for five years after the end of the business relationship) and the requirements of our professional body, after which it will be securely deleted or anonymised.
You have the right to access, rectify or erase your personal data, to receive a copy of it, to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, to withdraw any consent you have given, and to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). To exercise any of these rights, contact our data protection lead at tax@trfa.co.uk. If you do not provide the personal data we require, we may not be able to provide the services.
Personal data breach: in the unlikely event of a personal data breach affecting your data while under our control, we will act in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation, including notifying the ICO within 72 hours where the breach is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, and notifying you without undue delay where the breach is likely to result in a high risk to you. Provided we have complied with our obligations under the Data Protection Legislation and implemented the security measures described above, we shall not be liable for any loss, damage or distress arising from: (a) any breach, loss or unauthorised disclosure occurring in systems outside our control, including your own email account or devices or those of third parties to whom you have disclosed information; (b) your disclosure of your account credentials or claim information to others; or (c) any act or omission of any third party that is not our appointed sub-processor. Nothing in this paragraph excludes or limits any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the Data Protection Legislation or other applicable law.
Our full privacy policy is available at trfa.co.uk and a copy will be provided on request. By signing this letter you confirm that you have read and understood it.
Where you give us confidential information, we shall at all times keep it confidential, except as required by law or as provided for in regulatory, ethical or other professional statements relevant to our engagement.
We reserve the right during and after our engagement to act for other clients whose interests are or may compete with or be adverse to yours, subject to our obligations of confidentiality. We will notify you immediately should we become aware of any conflict of interest affecting you, unless we are unable to do so because of our confidentiality obligations. Where conflicts cannot be managed in a way that protects your interests, we will be unable to provide further services. Safeguards may include separate teams and separate arrangements for storage of, and access to, information.
We may, on occasion, subcontract work on your affairs to other tax or accounting professionals. Subcontractors will be bound by our client confidentiality and data protection terms. We will inform you of the proposed use of a subcontractor before they commence work, except where your data will not be transferred out of our systems and the subcontractor is bound by confidentiality terms equivalent to those of an employee.
We will provide our services with reasonable care and skill. Our liability to you is limited to losses, damages, costs and expenses directly caused by our negligence or wilful default. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be responsible for any losses, penalties, surcharges, interest or additional tax liabilities arising where you or others supply incorrect or incomplete information, or fail to supply appropriate information, or where you fail to act on our advice or respond promptly to communications from us or from HMRC. We will not be liable for any delay or failure to perform our obligations caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control, including delays caused by HMRC.
You will not hold us, our directors, shareholders or staff responsible, to the fullest extent permitted by law, for any loss suffered by you arising from any misrepresentation (intentional or unintentional) supplied to us orally or in writing, including fraudulent acts or wilful default on the part of any other party. You agree that you will not bring any claim in connection with the services against any of our directors, shareholders or employees personally.
Our aggregate liability to you in respect of this engagement, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise, shall not exceed [£___] or, if lower, the limit of our professional indemnity insurance. We hold professional indemnity insurance in accordance with the requirements of our professional body; the name and contact details of our insurer and the territorial coverage of the policy are available on request.
Our work is carried out for you alone and is not, unless there is a legal or regulatory requirement, to be made available to third parties without our written permission. We accept no responsibility to third parties for any aspect of our professional services or work that is made available to them, and you agree to indemnify us against any claim arising out of any unauthorised disclosure by you or by any person for whom you are responsible.
Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability which cannot as a matter of applicable law be excluded or limited. Nothing in this agreement affects your statutory rights.
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to conduct investment business, and our licence with our professional body does not authorise us to conduct any aspect of investment work. If, during the provision of our services, you need advice on investments, we may refer you to a person authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
In some circumstances we may receive commissions and/or other benefits for introductions to other professionals or in respect of transactions we arrange for you. Where this happens, we will notify you in writing of the amount and terms of payment and receipt of any such commissions or benefits. Fees payable by you will not be abated by such amounts unless we agree otherwise in writing, and you consent to us retaining such commissions or benefits where notified to you, in accordance with the Code of Professional Ethics of our professional body.
We are committed to providing a high-quality service that is both efficient and effective. Should there be any cause for complaint in relation to any aspect of our service, please contact the principal responsible for complaints management, by email at hello@trfa.co.uk or in writing to our office address above. Complaints relating to acts or omissions of Taxbax before the date of this letter should be addressed to Taxbax; we will assist in redirecting any complaint received in error. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly in writing, setting out our understanding of the complaint, investigate it carefully through an individual of sufficient experience not involved in the matter where viable, and do everything reasonable to resolve it, aiming to respond within 14 working days of receipt. If you are still not satisfied, you may refer your complaint to our professional body, the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), at www.aat.org.uk.
During our work we will collect information from you and others acting on your behalf and will return any original documents to you on request or on completion of the claim. Documents and records that you provide remain your property; our working papers remain our property. We will retain our files for a minimum of six years from the end of the engagement, after which they will be securely destroyed, unless you ask us in writing to keep them longer or return them to you.
Insofar as we are permitted to do so by law and by the guidelines of our professional body, we reserve the right to exercise a lien over all funds, documents and records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.
We confirm that a continuity arrangement is in place with an alternate practitioner who will deal with matters in the event of the principal's death, permanent incapacity or prolonged illness. The alternate will have access to the client information we hold in order to make initial contact with you and agree any work to be undertaken during the period of incapacity. You are free to appoint another firm or accountant at that stage if you wish.
If either of us ends this engagement, we will (unless there is good reason not to) confirm this in a disengagement letter setting out any outstanding work that will or will not be completed, any impending deadlines and the action required. With your consent, we will correspond on request with any new adviser you instruct. If we cease to act for you, you agree to meet the reasonable costs of providing information to your new advisers, including where we are required by law to do so.
This engagement letter, the schedules and any attached terms are governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales. The Courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this engagement letter, or any matter arising from it.
The terms set out in this letter take effect immediately upon your signature (electronic or wet-ink) or upon the commencement of work on your behalf, whichever is earlier. Once agreed, this letter will remain effective until it is replaced. This letter constitutes the entire agreement between us in relation to the services described. You or we may agree to vary or terminate our authority to act at any time; notice of variation or termination must be given in writing. You should not sign this letter until you have read and understood it, including the fees payable.
If this letter is not in accordance with your understanding of the scope of our engagement, or you have any questions, please contact us before signing.
Yours sincerely,
Tanzeel Rehman
Director
TR Forensic Accountants Ltd