Standard Terms of Engagement

The Saini Ledger provides bookkeeping, tax return preparation, and related financial services. Avneet Saini is a CTEC Registered Tax Preparer (CRTP) registered under California Business and Professions Code Sections 22250 to 22259, holds an IRS Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN), and is a QuickBooks Online Certified ProAdvisor. We are not a CPA firm, law firm, or enrolled agent, and our services do not require a California accountancy license.

• We do not perform audits, reviews, compilations, or other attest services, and we provide no assurance on any financial information.
• We do not provide legal, investment, insurance, or immigration advice. We do not prepare corporate, partnership, or fiduciary returns, which means Forms 1120, 1120-S, 1065, and 1041. We do not prepare foreign country tax returns, and we do not prepare foreign account reports such as FinCEN Form 114, the FBAR. We do not process payroll, and we do not prepare individual taxpayer identification number applications on Form W-7.
• Our authority to represent you before tax agencies is limited by federal and state rules. We hold a current IRS Annual Filing Season Program Record of Completion, which allows us to represent you only for returns we prepared and signed, and only before IRS revenue agents, customer service representatives, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service, not before Appeals or Collections. We do not represent clients before the Employment Development Department or the Franchise Tax Board.
• We do not make management decisions, hold or control your funds, sign checks, or approve payments. Avneet Saini performs the services and reviews all work product before it is finalized. We do not use offshore staff or offshore service providers, and all work is performed in the United States. We may use third-party service providers, including cloud-based providers, that store or process your information in connection with the services; our agreements with them require confidentiality, and we remain responsible to you for their supervision.

• You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the information, records, and explanations you give us, and for telling us about anything that affects our work.
• You are responsible for decisions made using our work, for your internal controls, for protecting your assets, and for complying with laws, licenses, contracts, grants, and donor restrictions that apply to you.
• You are responsible for making tax, payroll, and other payments on time, even when we calculate the amounts.
• You are responsible for keeping your own copies of returns, reports, and supporting records.
• You will respond to our requests within the time stated in your letter. Delays can move deadlines, require extensions, and change fees.

We rely on what you provide and do not audit, verify, or test it. Our work cannot be relied on to find errors, fraud, theft, or illegal acts by you, your employees, volunteers, vendors, or others. If we become aware of information that suggests fraud or a significant error, we will tell the appropriate person at your organization, and we may end the engagement.

We keep your information confidential. Under California Business and Professions Code Section 22252.1, we may disclose confidential information without your written permission only: in response to a subpoena or summons enforceable by court order; to defend ourselves in a legal proceeding you start; in response to an official inquiry from a federal or state regulatory agency; to another tax preparer for professional consultation or in connection with a sale or merger of our practice; to peer or quality review organizations; or when specifically required by law. California Business and Professions Code Section 17530.5 is a separate law. It makes it a misdemeanor to disclose information obtained in preparing an income tax return, unless you consent in writing, the law expressly authorizes it, the disclosure is necessary to prepare the return, or a court orders it.

We do not use or disclose your tax return information for anything other than preparing your return, except where Internal Revenue Code Section 7216 and the regulations under it allow it, or where you have signed a consent in the form those regulations require. You are never required to sign a consent in order to receive our services. We will not disclose your information to anyone outside the United States without telling you in writing and getting your written permission.

We maintain a written information security plan as required for tax professionals under the FTC Safeguards Rule, using IRS Publication 5708 as a guide, with encryption, multi-factor authentication, and a secure client portal. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you as the law requires.

• You are responsible for the security of your own devices, email, accounts, and systems. We are not responsible for losses caused by a breach of your systems or a third party’s systems, such as your bank, payroll provider, or payment processor.
• We will never change payment instructions by email. Confirm any request involving money or account changes by calling us at our published number.
• Send sensitive documents only through our portal, not regular email or text.

We use cloud-based software to deliver our services and may use software tools, including AI-assisted tools, to organize data and draft work. We review every deliverable before you receive it. We select providers with confidentiality and security protections, and we remain responsible for our work.

You agree that we may communicate electronically and that electronic signatures on engagement letters, amendments, and authorizations are binding. Email and internet communication carry inherent risks; except for our gross negligence or willful misconduct, we are not responsible for interception or unauthorized access to communications outside our systems.

• Fees are stated in your letter and are never contingent on the amount of a refund or tax savings.
• Work outside the letter requires a written Change Order or Engagement Amendment before it begins.
• We review fees annually and give at least 60 days’ written notice of changes to recurring fees.
• We may pause work when an invoice is more than 30 days past due. Pausing work does not delay your legal deadlines, and we are not responsible for consequences of a pause caused by nonpayment.
• If we must use a collection agency or legal process to collect unpaid fees, you agree to pay reasonable collection costs as allowed by law.

• We follow the preparer standards in Internal Revenue Code Section 6694 and may decline to take positions that do not meet them.
• An extension extends the time to file, not the time to pay. Penalties and interest on late payments are your responsibility.
• We cannot e-file without your signed e-file authorization. We are not responsible for late filing if it arrives after the deadline in your letter. Letters from taxing authorities are not covered by our fees; send them to us promptly.
• We are not responsible for errors in returns we did not prepare, including prior-year returns and information carried forward from them. We prepare only the returns named in your engagement letter and do not review whether you have filing obligations in other states or localities. A return can be selected for examination even when it is prepared correctly, and an examination is not evidence of an error by us.
• We have no duty to update a return or advice for law changes after we deliver it, unless you engage us to.
• Refund timing is controlled by tax agencies and is not guaranteed.
• California allows voluntary contributions to certain funds on state income tax returns. Tell us if you want to make one.
• Joint filers are each responsible for the full tax. We share joint return information with both spouses. If your interests conflict, we may be unable to continue for either of you.
• Form 1099 preparation. We prepare and file from the payee information you give us, including each payee’s name, address, and taxpayer identification number, normally collected on Form W-9. We do not verify that information. Penalties for a missing or incorrect number are yours. We need complete information by the date in your letter, and we are not responsible for a late filing where it arrives after that date.
• Quarterly estimates. We calculate from the information available when we prepare the estimate. Income or deductions that change afterwards change what you owe. We calculate, you pay. Making each payment by its due date is your responsibility, and penalties and interest on a missed or late payment are yours.
• California LLCs. A California limited liability company owes an annual tax, and an additional fee once total income passes a set level. Both are separate from income tax and have their own due dates. We will tell you what applies to you. Paying on time is your responsibility.

• Financial reports we prepare are for your internal use and are labeled as not audited, reviewed, or compiled. If you give them to anyone else, you must include that label and you remain responsible for them.
• We record transactions; you authorize and control them. Bank and platform access should be read-only or bookkeeper-level wherever possible. We do not verify opening balances or records from periods before our engagement, and we are not responsible for work done by anyone before us.
• We do not determine whether workers are employees or contractors, whether sales are taxable, or whether you need licenses. Consult an attorney or the relevant agency.
• QuickBooks subscriptions belong to you. Your QuickBooks Online subscription is held in your name and paid by you, and it stays with you if we stop working together. We can set one up for you, but we do not own it and we are not responsible for what Intuit charges or changes.
• Training. We train the people you name, on the version of QuickBooks Online you are running at the time. Training is not ongoing support, and support outside your letter is a separate engagement.
• Migrating from another system. When we bring data across, we reconcile to the opening balances we agree with you in writing. We do not audit or verify the data that existed before that date.

• The board of directors has final responsibility for the organization’s finances, filings, internal controls, and compliance with donor restrictions, grant agreements, and charitable trust law.
• Forms 990 and certain other filings are public documents, and the organization must make them available as required by law.
• California requires a registered charity with gross annual revenue of $2 million or more to have financial statements audited by an independent certified public accountant. Government Code Section 12586(e)(1) sets that requirement. Grants from and contracts with government entities are left out of that revenue figure where the government entity requires an accounting of the funds. We do not perform audits. We prepare your books for one.

Recommendations, templates, and analysis are provided for your consideration. You decide whether to adopt them and are responsible for the results. Policy templates are not legal documents; have counsel review any policy with legal effect. Consulting is not an audit or an evaluation of internal control effectiveness.

Our work is for your use only. No third party, including lenders, investors, buyers, donors, grantors, government agencies, courts, spouses, or former spouses, may rely on it without our written agreement. Nothing in our agreement creates rights for anyone other than you and us.

Our website also carries free guides and tools, including the nonprofit compliance self-check. Those are general information, not advice about your situation. Using them does not make you a client and does not create an engagement. No one should act on a result from them without speaking to us or to another qualified professional.

To the extent allowed by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from claims, losses, and costs, including reasonable attorney fees, brought by third parties and arising from information you provided or withheld, your acts or omissions, or any third party’s use of our work, except to the extent caused by our gross negligence or willful misconduct.

Except for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud, our total liability for all claims relating to an engagement is limited to the fees you paid for the specific service involved during the 12 months before the claim. Where we provide an engagement at no charge, including the Sarbat da Bhala give-back engagement, that limit is $3,000. Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, or lost-profit damages. Any claim must be brought within one year after you knew or should have known of it, or the shorter period allowed by law. We are not liable for penalties, interest, or taxes that you would have owed anyway.

Litigation support, expert testimony, and responding to subpoenas or government requests involving you are not part of any engagement unless agreed in writing. If we are required to produce documents, appear, or testify in a matter involving you in which we are not a party accused of wrongdoing, you agree to pay for our time at our current hourly rates and our reasonable attorney fees and costs.

We may serve clients who are related to you or to each other, such as spouses, business partners, or an organization and its officers. We will tell you if we become aware of a conflict and may need to end one or more engagements. A new engagement is also subject to completion of our conflicts check and client acceptance process, which may finish after you sign. We may withdraw immediately by written notice, without further liability, if the results of that process preclude us from performing the engagement.

Either party may end an engagement in writing. We may end it immediately for nonpayment, requests we believe are illegal or unethical, information suggesting fraud, threats or abusive conduct, or failure to provide what we need. You pay for work performed through the end date. We will return your original records on request regardless of balance, and we will sign any return we completed that you have paid for. After the engagement ends, we have no responsibility for later deadlines unless we agree in writing.

Your original records belong to you and will be returned on request. We keep a copy of every tax return we prepare for four years from the date it is completed or the date it was due, whichever is later. California Business and Professions Code Section 22253(a)(5) sets that period. We keep our workpapers for five years, after which they may be securely destroyed. Our workpapers are our property.

We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including natural disasters, public health emergencies, tax agency or software system outages, cyberattacks on third parties, or serious illness. If such an event occurs near a deadline, we will communicate options, such as extensions.

The parties will first try to resolve disagreements by direct discussion, then by non-binding mediation in Solano County, California, with costs shared equally, before filing a lawsuit. California law governs, and venue for any lawsuit is Solano County, California.

We are an independent contractor; no employment, partnership, or fiduciary relationship is created. Terms that by their nature continue after an engagement ends, including confidentiality, payment, indemnification, liability limits, and dispute resolution, survive termination. If any term is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Failure to enforce a term is not a waiver. Neither party may transfer an engagement to someone else without the other’s written consent, except that we may transfer it to a successor practice if we sell or merge, after telling you. We do not offer refund anticipation loans or refund-transfer products, and we never take our fee out of your refund.