Terms of engagement

1. About us

WiseReturn is a trading name of Jack Tuckley, sole trader. In these terms “we”, “us” and “our” mean WiseReturn, and “you” means the person signing these terms. You can contact us by email at contact@wisereturn.co.uk or by post at Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Poole, Dorset, BH16 6FA.

We are supervised by HMRC for anti-money laundering purposes. This is supervision, not an endorsement: HMRC does not approve or recommend us. We are an independent business and not part of HMRC. TODO(Jack): this paragraph is only true once HMRC AML approval is held. Add the registration number then.

2. Claiming for free

You don’t have to use an agent. You can claim directly from HMRC yourself, for free: check how to claim a tax refund on GOV.UK. Our fee is for preparing your claim for you.

3. What we will do

For the tax years agreed with you, we will prepare, and where you authorise us submit, one or more of these claims:

• a claim for tax relief on employment expenses (form P87)
• a claim for repayment of Income Tax (form R40)
• a Marriage Allowance claim

As part of this we will:

• review the information and documents you give us
• tell you what further evidence we need
• work out the claim from the evidence, and show it to you to check before it is submitted
• deal with straightforward questions from HMRC about the claim
• keep you updated through your account

We don’t prepare Self Assessment tax returns, give advice on any other tax matter, or represent you in an HMRC enquiry, appeal or tribunal. If any of these becomes necessary, we will tell you and you may need to get other help.

Whether you can claim, and how much, depends on your circumstances and on HMRC’s decision. We can’t promise that HMRC will pay a refund or how much it will pay.

4. Before we start

1. A person reviews the information and documents you have given us. We may ask you for more.
2. If we think we can help, we ask for your identity details and check your identity, including screening for politically exposed person (PEP) and sanctions status, as the law requires. We can’t act for you until these checks are complete.
3. You sign these terms on our website and set up a Direct Debit mandate for our fee.
4. Where needed, you authorise us to act as your agent with HMRC.

We don’t take on claims we expect to produce a refund of less than £75. Anything we tell you before you sign these terms, including any view on whether you can claim, is guidance only and does not create a contract. The agreement between us starts when you sign these terms.

5. What we need from you

• Give us information that is true, complete and up to date, and tell us promptly if anything changes.
• Provide the documents we reasonably ask for, and keep the originals.
• Check the claim before it is submitted and tell us if anything is wrong. The claim is made in your name: you are responsible for it being correct, and HMRC can recover a repayment that turns out to be wrong, with interest and in some cases penalties.
• Tell us about any money your employer paid you back for the costs in your claim.
• Tell us promptly if HMRC contacts you about the claim, or pays you.
• Don’t make a claim for the same costs and tax years yourself or through anyone else while we are acting for you.

6. What you can expect from us

• We will carry out our work with reasonable care and skill, and follow HMRC’s Standard for Agents.
• We will keep your information confidential and only use it as our privacy notice explains.
• We will tell you if we find that we can’t help, or can no longer help, and why.
• We will never ask HMRC to pay your refund to us or to anyone other than you.

7. Our fee

Our fee is 15% of the refund HMRC actually pays you, minimum fee £30. We are not VAT registered, so no VAT is added.

• No win, no fee: if HMRC pays you nothing as a result of the claims we prepare, you pay us nothing. If HMRC does pay you, our fee is due 14 days after HMRC pays you.
• The fee is worked out on the amount HMRC actually pays you as a result of the claims we prepared, as shown on HMRC’s notice or your bank statement, not on the amount claimed.
• If HMRC uses some or all of the refund to pay off tax you owe, that part counts as paid to you.
• If HMRC gives you relief by changing your tax code instead of paying you, no fee is due on that relief.
• If HMRC adds repayment interest to the refund, the interest is part of the total HMRC pays you, so our fee is worked out on the total including interest.
• The minimum fee of £30 applies to the total HMRC pays you for each claim, and is never more than the refund itself.
• If HMRC later reduces or takes back any of the repayment, we recalculate our fee on the amount you finally keep and refund any difference you have paid us within 14 days.

8. How you pay

• When HMRC pays you, we send you an invoice showing the amount HMRC paid and how our fee is worked out.
• We collect the fee by Direct Debit, under the mandate you set up when you engaged us, 14 days after HMRC paid you. You will be told the amount and date in advance. Your Direct Debit is protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee.
• If the Direct Debit fails or you have cancelled it, we will contact you. You can then pay by bank transfer within 14 days of our request.
• If you think an invoice is wrong, tell us before the collection date and we will look at it before collecting anything.
• You can cancel your Direct Debit at any time through your bank. This does not cancel any fee that is already due.

9. Your refund is paid to you

Every claim we make asks HMRC to pay any refund directly to you. We never receive, hold or pass on your refund, and we will never ask for your bank details to receive one. If you ask us to arrange for a refund to be paid to anyone else, we can’t do so.

10. Your right to cancel

You can cancel this agreement within 14 days of the day you sign it, without giving a reason. To cancel, tell us clearly: email contact@wisereturn.co.uk, write to us at Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Poole, Dorset, BH16 6FA, or use the cancellation form at the end of these terms. You don’t have to use the form. If you cancel in time, you pay nothing.

We won’t submit any claim during the 14 days unless you ask us to. If you ask us to start straight away and we submit your claim within the 14 days, you agree that you lose the right to cancel once that claim has been submitted, because our service will then have been fully performed. Our fee is then due as normal if HMRC pays you as a result of that claim.

11. Ending the agreement

After the 14 days, you can end the agreement at any time by telling us. If you end it before we submit a claim, you pay nothing. If you end it after we have submitted a claim, our fee is still due on any refund HMRC pays you as a result of that claim.

We may stop acting for you, by telling you in writing, if:

• you give us false or misleading information, or don’t give us what we reasonably need
• we can’t complete the identity checks the law requires
• continuing would break the law or our professional obligations

If we stop acting for you for any of these reasons, our fee is still due on any refund HMRC pays you as a result of a claim we have already submitted. Otherwise the agreement ends when HMRC has dealt with your claims and any fee has been paid.

12. Anti-money laundering

We must follow the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. This means we check your identity before we act for you, check it again if your details change or you make a new claim, and keep records for 5 years after our work for you ends. The law may require us to report suspicions to the National Crime Agency, and may prevent us from telling you that we have done so.

13. Our responsibility to you

We are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if we both knew it might happen when you signed these terms.

We are not responsible for:

• loss caused by information or documents you gave us being wrong or incomplete
• decisions HMRC makes, or delays by HMRC
• a refund HMRC takes back because it was based on information you gave us that was wrong
• loss that is not foreseeable

We provide our service to individuals for their private use. We are not responsible for any loss of business or business profit.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability where it would be unlawful to do so, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for breaking your legal rights as a consumer.

14. Your personal data

We use your personal data as explained in our privacy notice.

15. Complaints

If you are unhappy with our service, please tell us so we can put it right. Our complaints procedure explains how we deal with complaints and where you can go if you are still unhappy.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update our terms from time to time. Changes don’t apply to an agreement you have already signed unless you agree to them in writing, or the change is needed to comply with the law and doesn’t affect your fee.

17. Other important terms

• These terms, together with any claim details shown in your account, are the whole agreement between us.
• We may transfer this agreement to someone who takes over our business. We will tell you if this happens, and your rights won’t be affected.
• You may only transfer your rights under this agreement to someone else if we agree in writing.
• Nobody else has any rights under this agreement.
• If a court decides that part of these terms is invalid, the rest stays in force.
• If we don’t enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.

18. Law and courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts, and the mandatory consumer law of where you live still applies.

Cancellation form

Only complete and return this form if you want to cancel the agreement within 14 days of signing it.

To: WiseReturn, Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Poole, Dorset, BH16 6FA. Email: contact@wisereturn.co.uk

I give notice that I cancel my contract for the following service: preparation of a tax repayment claim.

• Signed on (date):
• Your name:
• Your address:
• Your claim reference, if you have one:
• Your signature (only if you send this form on paper):
• Date: