Frequently Asked Question

VtaxP: the Virtual Tax Partner tax consulting and support service

Terms and conditions
This is a summary of our standard terms and conditions: they set out the basis of our working relationship including how we charge for advice.

This Virtual Tax Partner ® (VtaxP ®) service is owned and run by Ross Martin Tax Consultancy Limited (RMTC), a company registered in England and Wales, company registration no: 03497104, registered office: Castlelee, Ryall, Dorset, DT6 4PF (UK).
We are an ICAEW member firm. Our Professional Indemnity Insurer is XL Catlin Insurance Company Limited, 20 Gracechurch Street, EC3V OBG.

We (RMTC), through this VtaxP service aim to provide you with tax, accounting or company secretarial assistance, on a pay-as-you-go basis.

• To ask a question open an account and create a support ticket with this Virtual Tax Partner (VtaxP) service
• We are acting for you (the person who raises the support ticket) and not for any third party
• This engagement commences when you tick the box to say that you confirm these terms and conditions.

Important points

• We are a virtual firm: all our staff work remotely. VtaxP is staffed by a mixture of our employees and third party contractors.
• We are human. We take holidays and days off: it is not always possible to respond to a query within 24 hours.
• We do not operate a telephone helpline
• We ask you to ensure that you set out your requirements clearly, in writing via this portal. This is to ensure that we manage risks, it reduces the risk of misunderstandings and we need to understand the detail as part of our due diligence in respect of anti-money laundering compliance.

Basis of charging

We won't charge you a fee until we have agreed an estimate with you. If we have quoted and you are asking more questions we will assume that you have agreed the quote.
You can save time by asking a question on a fixed fee basis, as indicated in the query heading.

When we agree to charge you a fee, the minimum charge for a 15 minute query is £70 (subscriber rate) or £93.75 (non-subscriber rate). We charge a minimum charge on a 15 minute query because of the costs of administration of a short query outweigh any financial reward this end and we have to cover basic costs.

Extra time is charged as follows:

• Paid subscribers to the www.rossmartin.co.uk practical online tax service, who are accountants or lawyers working in commerce or practice are charged on a scale between £70 to £105 per 15 minutes of our time.
• If you are not a paid subscriber to www.rossmartin.co.uk, you are charged on a scale of £93.75 to £135 per 15 minutes
• A lower fee rate may apply if you are requiring assistance with something that is technically of low risk and is straightforward to answer.
• Where there is high risk or complexity, our fee quote will include time for peer review.
• Our minimum charge is a quarter of an hour of time.
• You will be billed once a query is resolved.
• If you have further queries open a new ticket.
• We don't bill you until you agree an estimate or a fixed quote unless you have used a fixed price ticket and we have agreed to answer for that fee.

As an obliged entity in terms of Money Laundering Regulations (MLR) we cannot enter into a business relationship with you until we have completed AML checks. These are summarised as:

 a) identified who we are dealing with b) AML risk assessed you and b) verified your ID for anti-money laundering purposes.

Verification will include verification of your ID and proof of address, or that of your owners plus:

• If you are a company we must verify your registration the Persons of Significant Control (PSC) register.
• If you are a trustee, settlor or beneficiary of a UK trust or a non-UK trusts with UK assets we must verify that the trust has been registered on the Trust Registration Service (TRS).
• If you are an overseas person with a "relevant interest" in UK land we must verify that you been registered Register of Overseas Entities (ROE).
• If you are an accountancy service business, tax business, trust and service company providers, an estate agent or lettings business, a high value dealer or any other regulated business type we will require your AML registration details with HMRC unless you are registered for AML with a professional body supervisor, if so we require your membership number with your professional firm. 
  

AML professional firms: we can rely on your ID checks performed in respect of your relevant client if you give us permission to do so. This is enabled when you raise a support ticket. We must still AML check you as a firm before we enter into a professional relationship with your firm.

How to obtain a price: types of ticket

1. Quote required

When you submit a query "Quote required" we will endeavour to provide an estimate of an approximate fee for a particular assignment at the outset.

• If you require a fixed fee, please state this. It may be impossible to agree a fixed fee if there is an element of uncertainty as to how long a job will take. In these cases a fixed fee may not be appropriate and it may be more expensive for you to agree a fixed fee.
• For any extras or time based billing our fees are charged in units of a quarter of an hour, with a minimum charge of a quarter of an hour.

2. Short chargeable query: fixed fee (budget selected)

• If you have a short query and you wish to avoid the time delay of extra emails you may select one of the fixed fee options. These list fees by time/cost.
• If we can answer the query within the time that allows we will then go ahead and answer it and you will be billed automatically with the response.
• If we cannot answer the query within that budget we will notify you and advise you how long we estimate.

Miscellaneous billing issues

• All fees are subject to VAT at standard rate, where applicable
• Any disbursements we incur on your behalf, and expenses incurred in the course of carrying out our work for you, will be added to our invoices where appropriate.
• If you do not accept that an invoiced fee is fair and reasonable you must notify us within 14 days of receipt, failing which you will be deemed to have accepted that payment is due.
• If a client company, trust or other entity is unable or unwilling to settle our fees we reserve the right to seek payment from the individual (or parent company) who has given us instructions on behalf of that client. You agree that we shall be entitled to enforce any sums due against the Group Company or individual nominated to act for you.

GDPR
We are registered with the Information Commissioner, our GDPR Privacy Policy is here

Now do you have a query for us?

Click here to open a support ticket!