Engagement Agreement

Version 1.9 · Effective 24 September 2026

This agreement, together with our Terms of Service, our Refund Policy, and the order you confirm at checkout, governs each engagement between you and Xilestone Pty Ltd (ABN 41 653 808 050), Registered Tax Agent No. 26216110, trading as Xilestone Tax ("Xilestone", "we", "us"). "You" means the client identified in the details you provide at checkout. By ticking the acceptance box and completing checkout, you accept this agreement for that engagement.

1. Who we are

Xilestone Pty Ltd is an Australian accounting practice and registered tax agent regulated under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009. The Tax Practitioners Board maintains a public register of tax agents, and you can view our registration record on the TPB register. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

2. What we will do

We will prepare the return or service you selected at checkout, as itemised in your order summary and tax invoice. For a company, trust or SMSF engagement, your order summary states whether financial statements are included. We will review your information, prepare your draft, provide it to you by email with a declaration form, and lodge your return with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) once you have authorised lodgement and any balance of your fee has been paid. We will provide our services competently and in a timely manner, in accordance with the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 and its Code of Professional Conduct.

A tax return prepared from your records. Unless financial statements are included in your order, we prepare your return from the records you provide — your accounting file, bank statements, or a spreadsheet of the year's income and expenses whose figures reconcile — and we prepare the working papers needed to support it. A set of financial statements is not produced under this scope.

Financial statements. Where included, we prepare special purpose financial statements from your reconciled accounting file or from a trial balance prepared by your bookkeeper. Reconciled means that bank feeds agree to the statement balances, there are no material unallocated or suspense items, and GST is reconciled. Your fee includes one draft and one round of amendments; further revisions are available under a separate fixed fee agreed before they begin. We do not audit the financial statements we prepare. For an SMSF engagement that includes financial statements, an independent approved SMSF auditor engaged by the trustees audits them; that auditor's fee forms part of your fee, and we pay it to the auditor. Your fee for that engagement assumes a fund invested in cash, term deposits, listed securities, managed funds and real property. A fund holding any other asset — for example shares in a private company, units in a private unit trust, cryptocurrency, collectables or private loans — is quoted before work begins; if such an asset comes to light after checkout, clause 5 applies.

3. What is not included

We rely on the information and records you provide and do not audit or independently verify them. This engagement does not include bookkeeping, the reconstruction or clean-up of an accounting file, representing you in an ATO audit, review, objection, or appeal, advice beyond the return or service selected, or any other service. Where financial statements are included, revisions beyond one round of amendments are not included. Work outside this scope is available under a separate engagement with its own fixed fee, agreed before it begins.

4. How this engagement forms

Your engagement forms when you accept this agreement and complete the checkout payment. If your selection requires a custom quote, your request is binding on you but conditional on our review and acceptance; we will provide a fixed quote, and the engagement forms when you accept it and pay. Every engagement is subject to our identity and integrity verification. If we decline to act, the engagement is void and any payment is refunded in full. The version of this agreement you accept, and the time you accept it, are recorded.

5. Your fee

Your fee is fixed, in Australian dollars, includes GST, and is displayed and confirmed before you pay. One engagement covers one return or service and one fee. Where your fee is $5,500 or less, it is paid in full at checkout. Where your fee exceeds $5,500, you pay $5,500 at checkout and the balance is invoiced when your draft is issued; the balance is payable before lodgement. No part of your fee is calculated as a percentage of any tax refund, offset or benefit. Your fee is earned in stages as the work of your engagement is completed, as set out in our Refund Policy. If your records show that your situation is materially different from what you configured at checkout — including where your accounting file is not reconciled, or where the records you provide require financial statements to be prepared before your return can be — and requires a higher fee, we will propose a revised fixed fee before continuing; you may accept it, or decline and receive a refund of the unearned balance under our Refund Policy. If your completed return needed a lower fee than you paid, we will refund the difference on request. Refunds are governed by our Refund Policy in the version published when your engagement formed.

6. Your ATO refund

Under this engagement, any tax refund or offset, including any research and development tax offset, is paid by the ATO directly to your nominated bank account. We do not receive it on your behalf, we do not deduct fees from it, we do not charge a percentage of it, and we do not hold money or other property on trust for you.

7. Your responsibilities

You agree to provide information that is complete, accurate, and timely, and that you are authorised to provide where it concerns another person; to keep the records the law requires you to keep; to review your draft return and authorise lodgement; and to tell us about changes relevant to your engagement. You remain responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the information in your return. Australia's tax system is self-assessment based: the ATO may review or amend your return after lodgement, and penalties can apply to false or incomplete disclosures. You have rights of objection and appeal against ATO decisions, and we can advise you about them on request.

8. Our responsibilities and legal duties

We must act lawfully in your best interests, and act honestly and with integrity. We take reasonable care in ascertaining your circumstances and in applying the taxation laws correctly, and we maintain arrangements for managing conflicts of interest. We may ask you to clarify information, but we will not audit it. If we become aware that a statement made to the ATO is false or misleading in a material particular, we have legal obligations that may include advising you to correct it and, if it is not corrected, notifying the ATO or the TPB. In limited situations the law overrides our duties to you, for example where we must comply with a statutory notice.

9. Confidentiality and your information

We will not disclose information about your affairs to a third party without your permission, unless we have a legal duty to do so. By accepting this agreement, you consent to us using the service providers described in our Privacy Policy, such as our payment processor and secure cloud infrastructure, strictly to deliver your engagement. Our handling of your personal information, including your tax file number, is governed by our Privacy Policy.

10. Documents and records

We will give you a copy of your lodged return and the documents we prepare for you. We retain engagement records in accordance with the retention periods in our Privacy Policy, after which they are securely destroyed or de-identified, and we will return your original documents on request.

11. Insurance, ending the engagement, and complaints

We maintain professional indemnity insurance that meets the TPB’s requirements. Either of us may end the engagement by written notice. If you end it, your notice takes effect when it is received at support@xilestone.com.au, and the fee earned to that time, the refund due, and any deduction are determined under our Refund Policy and clause 5. If we end it for a reason of our own, your fee is refunded in full; if your engagement lapses because information we have asked for has not been provided, the unearned balance is dealt with as set out in our Refund Policy. If you have a complaint about our services, contact support@xilestone.com.au first: we will acknowledge it and aim to resolve it within 14 days. If we cannot resolve it, you may complain to the Tax Practitioners Board; its process is explained at tpb.gov.au/complaints. Privacy complaints are handled as set out in our Privacy Policy.

12. General

This agreement, our Terms of Service, our Refund Policy, and your order summary and tax invoice together set out the terms of your engagement; if they are inconsistent, this agreement prevails. The version of this agreement you accept governs your engagement, even if we later publish a new version. This agreement is governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia.