Firm Policies
OUR CONFIDENTIALITY POLICY
The confidentiality of Client information provided to us in the performance of our work has always been important to us, and we have always been bound by our professional ethical standards to maintain complete confidentiality with regard to Client data; such confidentiality is required by law as is this Notice.
In the performance of our duties, we collect relevant information about our Clients that is provided by Clients or is obtained by us with Client authorization from other persons or entities.
This information may come from various sources, including data we might receive verbally direct from our Client, documents provided to us by our Client, and data or documents provided to us from third parties. We restrict our data-gathering activities to obtain only such information as is needed to enable us to provide the pertinent professional services our Client wants from us.
Such information may consist of public data, such as our Client’s name, address, and telephone number; it may also consist of non-public data, such as our Client’s social security number, Federal identification number, tax data, income data, and net worth data.
We do not disclose any information about any Client or former Client to anyone at all, under any circumstances, other than to our Client or to our Client’s management personnel, except as follows:
- In the performance of our services (such as Client data on documents to be filed by or for our Client with the Federal and/or State agencies) with written authorization from and signed by our Client.
- Subject to our veto, to any other person or entity named by written authorization from and signed by our Client to receive information and/or documents specifically stated in said written authorization (we do charge for copies).
- As may be ordered in writing and signed by any Court of competent jurisdiction as is determined in writing and signed by Client legal counsel (we do charge for copies).
We restrict access to Client data to members of our Firm who need such data to properly provide professional services to our Client, as is determined by us, and we maintain records of such Firm member activity.
Our Firm employs physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect the privacy of Client information.
OUR INTEGRITY POLICY
We require that every member of our Firm maintain the highest integrity in all matters, both professional and otherwise, and endeavor to provide the highest level of service consistent with all appropriate professional standards. Failure to do so will result in dismissal from our Firm.
We require that our Clients and Client management personnel maintain the highest integrity in all matters, including business, taxation, and otherwise, and endeavor to provide our Firm with accurate and complete data to enable us to provide the highest level of service consistent with professional standards. Failure to do so will result in dismissal from our Client list.
OUR WORK PRODUCT POLICY
We provide our Client with a copy of our work product on completion of our work; we do not necessarily provide any further copies of our work product, nor are we required by law or ethics to do so.
We do not retain in our files documents that are the property of our Clients, and we do not permanently retain in our files copies of the information we have received from or about our Client; we are not required by law or ethics to keep this data permanently and we have internal data retention and data destruction schedules.
We consider all of the data in our files to be our property, and is not necessarily available to Clients or others.
We may utilize outside services (such as computer income tax programs written by outside contractors) in providing professional services, if we deem such to be beneficial to Clients and to our Firm.
We endeavor to complete our work as expeditiously as possible, and we expect to be paid as expeditiously as possible also. Failure to pay our fee expeditiously may cause immediate termination of our services.