Terms & Privacy.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

This website, ccolesnotes.com, belongs to CColesNotes.com Consulting Inc. (“CColesNotes”, “CCN”, “we”, “us”), 941 Esquimalt Road, Suite 203, Esquimalt, BC V9A 3M7. By using the site you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use it.

These terms cover the website. Work you hire us for is covered by the engagement letter we sign with you, and where the two differ, the engagement letter wins.

2. General information, not advice

Everything here is general information: the service descriptions, prices, due dates, blog posts, checklists, reviews and the Ask Clint answers. None of it is tax, accounting, legal, financial or investment advice, and it doesn’t take your own circumstances into account.

Tax rules change, sometimes partway through a year, and two situations that look alike can be treated very differently. Don’t act on something you read here, or decide not to act, without getting advice on your own situation. You’re responsible for decisions you make based on the site.

3. When you become a client

Browsing the site, filling in a form, emailing or calling us doesn’t make us your accountants. That only happens when we’ve both signed an engagement letter, or otherwise confirmed in writing that we’re taking on the work.

Until then, we aren’t responsible for any return or filing, even if you’ve sent us documents. Deadlines with the CRA and other government bodies are always yours to meet, whether or not you’ve hired us. If a CRA date is close, say so in your first message.

What the site says about how we work (response times, how we handle mistakes, how files are shared and stored, what’s included in a fee) describes how we usually operate. It isn’t a contract term. The engagement letter sets out what we’ll actually do for you, what it costs and what we’re responsible for.

4. Prices, due dates and accuracy

We try to keep the site accurate and current, but we don’t promise that every page is complete, free of errors or up to date on the day you read it.

• Prices marked “starting at” are where a job usually starts. They aren’t quotes. Your fee is confirmed before work begins, and prices are before GST unless the page says otherwise. We can change prices at any time.
• Due dates on the site are the general ones. Yours may be different, and governments change them.
• Ask Clint answers reflect the rules at the time Clint wrote them, and many have changed since. Where we’ve noticed a change, we’ve added a dated note under the answer, but we don’t check every answer.

5. Online folders and file sharing

If we give you access to an online folder, shared drive or similar tool for sending documents or seeing your filed returns, it’s a convenience, not a record-keeping service. We may change it, move it or stop offering it. It may be unavailable at times, including because of the outside company that runs it.

Keep your own copies of anything important, including your returns, notices of assessment and receipts. You’re responsible for your own records, and we aren’t responsible for loss or delay caused by an outside storage or software provider.

6. Ask Clint

Ask Clint shares real questions people asked on a public Canadian finance forum, with the answers Clint gave there. We change the names of the people asking. Each answer was written for one person, at one moment, from the details they chose to share, so read it as general information under section 2.

If you asked one of these questions and would like it taken down, tell us and we’ll review it. We normally remove it, and you don’t have to give a reason.

7. Reviews

The reviews on this site are Google reviews of CColesNotes, reproduced as written. We show each reviewer’s name as it appears on Google, except one labelled “Personal Tax Client” because the reviewer used a screen name. A review describes one person’s experience. It isn’t a promise of the same result for you.

8. Links to other websites

We link to sites we think are useful, such as the Canada Revenue Agency, the Province of British Columbia, WorkSafeBC and Google Maps. We don’t control those sites and aren’t responsible for their content, whether they’re working, or how they handle your information.

CColesNotes is an independent firm. We aren’t part of, or endorsed by, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Province of British Columbia or WorkSafeBC.

9. Using the site fairly

You’re welcome to read, print and share our pages for your own use, and to link to any page. Please don’t:

• republish our content, including the Ask Clint answers, for commercial purposes without our written permission
• collect email addresses or phone numbers from the site to send unsolicited messages
• use our forms to send spam or false information, or to pretend to be someone else
• interfere with the site, test its security, or try to reach anything that isn’t publicly offered

Search engines and AI assistants may read and index the site. We can block anyone who misuses it.

10. Who owns what

The text, design, and the CColesNotes and CCN names and logos belong to CColesNotes or are used with permission. Photographs and video are used under licence from their owners. Icons are from the free Streamline Plump set by Streamline, used under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Using the site doesn’t give you any right to use our names or logos.

Our name is a nod to the Coles Notes study guides. Coles Notes is a trademark of its owner, and CColesNotes isn’t connected with those guides or their publisher.

11. Accessibility

We’ve tried to make the site work with a keyboard, a screen reader and browser zoom. If something on it gets in your way, call or email us and we’ll do our best to get you the information another way.

12. Limits on our responsibility

The site is provided “as is” and “as available”, without any promise or warranty of any kind. As far as the law allows, CColesNotes and its owners, staff and contractors aren’t responsible for any loss or damage that comes from:

• using the site, or not being able to use it
• relying on anything on the site
• other websites, or outside services the site links to or uses
• the site being down, interrupted, or affected by errors, viruses or other harmful code

That includes indirect loss, such as lost income, lost opportunities or penalties and interest charged to you by a government. Where the law doesn’t let us exclude responsibility completely, our total responsibility for anything to do with the website is limited to $100.

This section is about the website. Our responsibility for work you hire us to do is set out in your engagement letter.

13. If someone makes a claim because of how you used the site

If you use the site in breach of these terms and someone makes a claim against us because of it, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with that claim, including legal fees.

14. Changes to the site

We can change, move or remove any page, price or service at any time, without notice. The site may also be down from time to time for updates or for reasons outside our control.

15. Who is responsible

CColesNotes is responsible for the personal information it collects and follows British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Our privacy officer handles privacy questions and requests. You can reach them at admin@ccolesnotes.com, by phone at 778-747-3330, or by mail at 941 Esquimalt Road, Suite 203, Esquimalt, BC V9A 3M7.

16. What we collect, and why

We collect what we need for the reason you contacted us.

• Our forms. The Personal Tax Form and the General Inquiries Form ask for things like your name, email, phone number and what you need help with. We use that to reply and, if you become a client, to set up your file.
• Email and phone. Whatever you choose to send or tell us, used the same way.
• Job applications. The Careers form opens an email in your own mail app. We use what you send, including your resume, only to consider you for work with us.
• Client work. Once you hire us, we collect what the work needs, such as your Social Insurance Number when a return requires it, tax slips, receipts, and banking details for direct deposit or payments. We use it for that work and to meet our own legal and professional obligations.
• Website logs. Our website host automatically records standard technical details, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested, to run the site and keep it secure.
• Visitor statistics. We use Google Analytics to see how people find and use the site: which pages they visit, how long they stay, the website or search that brought them here, their type of device and browser, and their general location (such as the city or region). We look at this as reports and totals. We also see summary reports from Google Search Console and our Google Business Profile about how people find us on Google Search and Maps.

17. Cookies and tracking

We use Google Analytics, a Google service, to understand how visitors use the site. It sets cookies (small files your browser stores) and collects details such as the pages you view, how you arrived, your device and browser, and your approximate location. Google processes this information for us under its own terms and may store it outside Canada (section 20). Google explains how it uses this information on its page How Google uses information from sites that use its services. The site doesn’t show advertising.

The map on the Contact page, the Google Forms and the site’s fonts are also provided by Google, and Google may set its own cookies or receive technical details when they load.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The site still works without them. If you leave cookies on and keep using the site, you agree to this use.

18. Your consent

When you send us information, you agree to us using it for the reason you sent it, as described here. If we want to use it for a new purpose, we’ll get your consent where the law requires it. You can withdraw your consent, subject to legal and contractual limits. If withdrawing means we can’t finish something, such as a return, we’ll tell you.

19. Who we share it with

We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we don’t use it for marketing without your permission. We share it:

• with the Canada Revenue Agency and other government bodies, when filing or dealing with them for you is part of the work you hired us for
• with people you ask us to work with, such as your lawyer, financial advisor or your spouse’s accountant
• with the outside companies we use to run the office and the site (section 20), which handle it on our behalf
• when the law requires or allows it, for example under a court order or to collect an unpaid account

20. Outside companies, and information stored outside Canada

We use outside companies to run the site and the office. Each handles data under its own terms and privacy policy, and some store or process it outside Canada, mainly in the United States. They include:

• Netlify, which hosts the website
• Google, which provides our forms, email and file storage (Google Workspace), visitor statistics (Google Analytics), the map on the Contact page and the site’s fonts
• TaxCycle, the tax software we enter your information into to prepare and file returns, and TaxFolder, its electronic-signature service and secure client portal (both Xero products)
• QuickBooks Online and Xero, for clients whose bookkeeping we do in those programs

We may change these providers. Information stored outside Canada is subject to the laws of the country where it’s kept, and authorities there may be able to access it. We aren’t responsible for how an outside company handles information under its own policies.

If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you may have extra rights under the data protection law there. Contact our privacy officer (section 15) to use them.

21. How long we keep it

• Inquiries from people who don’t become clients: generally up to two years, then deleted.
• Job applications: generally up to two years, so we can contact you if something opens up. Ask and we’ll delete yours sooner.
• Client files: for as long as we work together, and afterwards for as long as tax law, our professional obligations or our own legal protection require.

22. How we protect it

We use reasonable safeguards for the kind of information we hold, and we limit access to the people who need it for your work. No way of storing or sending information is completely secure, and we can’t promise that your information will never be accessed without permission.

Please don’t send your Social Insurance Number or banking details by ordinary email or through the General Inquiries Form. When we need them, we’ll give you a more secure way to send them.

If a breach of your information creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we’ll take reasonable steps to let you know.

23. Your rights

Under BC law you can ask us:

• for access to the personal information we hold about you, and how it has been used and shared
• to correct information that’s wrong

You can also ask us to stop using your information or delete it. We’ll do that unless we need to keep it for the work, for the law, or for our own records.

Send requests to our privacy officer (section 15). We’ll respond within the time BC law allows. If you aren’t happy with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.

24. Children

The site is meant for adults. If we work for someone under 19, we involve a parent or guardian where that’s appropriate. A parent or guardian can contact us on a child’s behalf.