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Version 3.0 – Effective 13 August 2026

When this Policy uses “us”, “we” or “our”, it refers to Accounting Excellence Pty Ltd (ABN 85 613 087 586). “You” or “your” refers to our clients, prospective clients, website visitors, and other individuals whose personal information we collect or hold.

1. Our commitment to your privacy

Accounting Excellence Pty Ltd respects your right to privacy and is committed to safeguarding the personal information of our clients, staff and website visitors. As a registered tax agent practice, we handle information that is often highly sensitive — including financial, taxation and identification information — and we take our obligations around that information seriously.

We manage personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). We are also subject to obligations under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (including the Code of Professional Conduct administered by the Tax Practitioners Board), the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (the AML/CTF Act), and the Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015. Where these obligations intersect with the APPs, we explain how below.

“Personal information” means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether true or not.

2. Personal information we collect

The personal information we collect depends on the nature of our engagement with you. It may include:

  • Names, contact details (addresses, email, phone), date of birth and gender

  • Information about your taxation, superannuation, business or personal financial affairs

  • Identification information such as passport, driver’s licence and other government-issued identifiers, including your tax file number (TFN)

  • Bank account details, shareholdings, investment and superannuation information

  • Employment history, salary and referee information, and visa or work permit status

  • Your IP address and website usage information

  • Personal information about your spouse, dependants, business partners, or associated entities relevant to your affairs

  • Where you are a customer, employee, contractor or supplier of one of our clients — information provided to us as part of delivering services to that client

From 1 July 2026, as a reporting entity under the AML/CTF Act, we may also collect additional identity-verification information, beneficial ownership information for companies and trusts, and information about the source of funds or wealth involved in a matter, as part of our customer due diligence obligations (see section 6).

We collect information directly from you where practicable — through our website, forms, email, phone or in person. We may also collect information from third parties (for example, the ATO, other government agencies, your other advisers, or publicly available sources) where necessary to provide our services or comply with the law.

3. Why we collect, hold, use and disclose your information

We collect and use personal information for the purposes of:

  • Providing accounting, taxation, advisory, SMSF and related professional services to you

  • Administering our engagement with you, including billing and client records

  • Complying with our legal and regulatory obligations, including to the ATO, ASIC, the Tax Practitioners Board and, where applicable, AUSTRAC

  • Verifying your identity, including under our AML/CTF customer due diligence obligations

  • Responding to your enquiries and communicating with you about our services

  • Improving our services and the security of our systems

We do not use your personal information for direct marketing without your consent, and you may opt out of any marketing communications at any time by contacting us using the details in section 11.

4. Disclosure of your personal information

As part of an engagement, we may disclose your personal information to:

  • Our staff, contractors and professional advisers involved in delivering your services

  • Third-party service providers we engage, including cloud-based practice management, document storage, and accounting software providers

  • Government or regulatory bodies where required or authorised by law, including the Australian Taxation Office, the Tax Practitioners Board, ASIC, and (from 1 July 2026) AUSTRAC

  • Other professionals engaged as part of your matter, where you have authorised this

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Confidentiality and legal disclosure. Under the Tax Practitioners Board’s Code of Professional Conduct, we will not disclose information about your affairs to a third party without your permission, unless we have a legal duty to do so. Circumstances where we may have a legal duty to disclose your information without your consent include a formal notice from the ATO, a court or tribunal order or direction, a request from the Tax Practitioners Board relating to our conduct, or a report made to AUSTRAC under the AML/CTF Act. Where we are required to report information to AUSTRAC, the law may prevent us from telling you that a report has been made (this is known as the ‘tipping-off’ prohibition) — this does not constitute a breach of our confidentiality obligations to you.

Outsourcing and cloud storage. Where we use outsourced or cloud-based providers to store or process your information, we take reasonable steps to ensure those arrangements maintain appropriate confidentiality and security, consistent with our professional obligations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools. We may use AI tools, including generative AI platforms such as Claude (developed by Anthropic PBC), to assist us in preparing correspondence, working papers, research and other materials as part of your engagement. Providing your information to an AI tool is a disclosure to a third party under the Tax Practitioners Board’s Code of Professional Conduct. We only provide identifying information about your affairs to an AI tool where we have your permission (including permission given under clause 7 of our Terms of Engagement) or the information has first been de-identified. AI providers we use are contractually restricted from using your information to train their underlying models, and any AI-generated output is reviewed by a qualified member of our team before it is relied upon or provided to you. AI platforms we use may store or process information on servers located overseas (see section 5 below). If you would like more information about which AI tools we use, or wish to withdraw your permission for us to use AI tools in relation to your engagement, please contact us using the details in section 11.

5. Overseas disclosure

Some of the cloud-based software and service providers we use to deliver our services may store or process personal information on servers located outside Australia. Where this is the case, we take reasonable steps to ensure those overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. If you would like more information about the specific overseas locations relevant to your information, please contact us using the details in section 11.

6. AML/CTF compliance (from 1 July 2026)

From 1 July 2026, expanded AML/CTF laws mean that certain services we provide are ‘designated services’ regulated by AUSTRAC. Where this applies to your engagement, we are required to:

  • Verify your identity and, where relevant, the identity of beneficial owners of companies, trusts and other structures

  • Undertake ongoing customer due diligence, including monitoring for higher-risk circumstances

  • Report certain information and transactions to AUSTRAC, including suspicious matter reports and threshold transaction reports, where required by law

  • Retain AML/CTF-related records for the period required under the AML/CTF Act (currently up to 7 years)

This information is collected and used solely for these compliance purposes and is handled with the same security safeguards as your other personal information.

7. Automated decision-making

We may use tools, including risk-assessment tools, to help assess AML/CTF risk as part of our compliance obligations. Where any such tool is used to make, or materially inform, a decision that could reasonably affect your rights or interests, we will ensure this Policy identifies the kinds of personal information used and the kinds of decisions involved, consistent with our obligations under the Privacy Act (applicable from 10 December 2026). You may always request that a decision affecting you be reviewed by a member of our team.

8. Security of your personal information

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect personal information we hold from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These include:

  • Firewalls, access controls and encryption for electronic records

  • Confidentiality agreements with employees, contractors and outsourced providers

  • Restricted physical access to our business premises and paper records

  • Secure destruction (including shredding) of information no longer required

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm to affected individuals, we will comply with our obligations under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, including notifying the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and affected individuals as required by law.

9. Retention of your information

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. This generally means retaining tax and accounting records for at least 5 years as required under taxation law, and AML/CTF-related records for up to 7 years as required under the AML/CTF Act. Where information is no longer required, we take reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify it.

10. Access to and correction of your information

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it if you believe it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. We will respond to your request within a reasonable period (ordinarily within 30 days). We may need to verify your identity before providing access, and there may be limited circumstances where we are not required to provide access (for example, where doing so would be unlawful).

11. How to contact us / complaints

If you have a question about this Policy, wish to access or correct your personal information, or wish to make a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Director, Marion Rodwell:

  • Mail: PO Box 3274, Sunnybank South QLD 4109

  • Phone: 0431 981 005

  • Email: marion@accountingexcellence.com.au

We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC):

  • Website: www.oaic.gov.au

  • Phone: 1300 363 992

12. Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites that are not owned or controlled by us. These links are provided for your convenience only. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites, and we encourage you to review the privacy policy of any third-party website you visit.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or the law. The current version will always be available on our website, with the effective date shown above. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically.