Last Updated January 10, 2023
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) for TaxBit, Inc. (“TaxBit”, “we”, “us” “our”), describes how we collect, use and disclose information about website visitors to our website https://taxbit.com/ (the “Website”), consumers using our platform, enterprise users hosting a custom tax center through our enterprise platform, and associated applications, services, tools and features (collectively, “the Service(s)”). For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “you” and “your” means you as the user of the Services. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use Personal Data about you as a data controller.
1. What Do We Mean by Personal Data?
In this Privacy Policy, “Personal Data” means any information that identifies, describes, or is capable of being associated with, a particular individual, for example, name, signature, social security number, address, and financial information.
2. Data We Collect
In order to provide you with the Services, we may ask you to provide us with certain details or Personal Data. In the preceding 12 months, we’ve collected the following types of Personal Data:
- Contact Information. We collect your email address, your account username, and zip code. We may also collect the name or alias of any agents or end users you authorize to log into and utilize the Service in connection with your account.
- Account Information. Username, password, and comments within our Services.
- Financial Information. Your credit card information and tax-related information, such as previous tax returns, tax forms and banking information.
- Interaction and Feedback. Your interactions with our Services, your preferences regarding our Services (e.g., notification preferences), feedback regarding our Services, interactions, and transactions and requests you make.
- Other Information. Any other information you choose to include in communications with us or arising from your use of the Services (e.g., when sending a message, submitting information through our webform, or commenting on our blog).
In addition, we also collect the following types of data:
Usage Data. We collect information on how you interact with the Services, such as the IP address from which you access the Service, date and time accessed, information about your browser, operating system and computer or device, pages viewed, internet service provider, referring/exit pages, date/time stamp, clickstream data and items clicked. We may also collect location information, including location information automatically provided by your computer or device. We use cookies and similar technologies to collect some of this information.
Data from Third Parties. We may obtain information about you from the following third party sources:
API. You may consent to TaxBit using our Application Programming Interface (APIs) to allow TaxBit to receive information about you from other sources.
Service Providers. We receive information from service providers and other similar entities collecting or processing information about you on our behalf, for example, to store information we use and process as part of our Services.
3. Purpose of Personal Information Collection
We process Personal Data about you in order to perform our contract with you, such as to provide you with our Services, process payments and taxes, and to contact and communicate with you and your agents about the Services.
If you are a registered user of the Services, you have supplied your email address and TaxBit may obtain your consent to occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with TaxBit and our products.
In order to be responsive to you, to provide effective Services to you, and to maintain our business relationship, as a matter of our legitimate interests, we will use your Personal Data to:
- Improve the Services. We generally use this information to analyze trends, administer and maintain the Service, or track usage of various features within the Service.
- Maintain the safety and security of our users, our Website, our Services, and business.
- Send you and your agents announcements in relation to security, privacy or other administrative-related communications (these communications are not marketing orientated, and we do not rely on consent, so you may not opt out). If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.
- Personalize our Website and our Services to ensure content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device.
- Auditing related to our interactions with you.
- Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and necessary prosecution, and debugging the Services.
- Conducting internal research for technological improvement, and other internal operations.
- Other one-time or short-term uses.
In addition, we will use some or all of the above information to comply with any applicable legal and regulatory obligations (such as to verify your identity), to enforce any applicable terms and conditions and/ or terms of service, and to protect or defend the Services, our rights, the rights of our users, or others.
4. Sharing Personal Data
We do not sell personal data. In the preceding 12 months, we shared Personal Data with third parties as necessary, otherwise required or permitted by law, and for our business purposes as detailed in Section 3. Specifically, we share Personal Data about you:
With our affiliates, in our legitimate interests. We may make available the Personal Data that you provide to us with companies within our corporate family.
With service providers and vendors. Such third parties include: web host provider, other SaaS providers, such as an email hosting service, payment processors, or outside contractors we hire to perform marketing, maintenance, or assist us in securing our Services. We may also hire third parties to operate, maintain, repair, or otherwise improve and preserve our Services or its underlying files or systems.
When you request us to share certain information with third parties, with consent or to perform a contract with you. With your permission or upon your direction, we will disclose Personal Data about you to relevant third parties.
With professional advisors, in our legitimate interests or as required by law. As necessary, we will share Personal Data about you with professional advisors functioning as service providers such as auditors, law firms, or accounting firms.
For legal and security reasons and to protect our services and business, in our legitimate interests or as required by law. We will share Personal Data about you with regulators, law enforcement agencies, public authorities, or any other relevant organizations: (i) in response to a legal obligation; (ii) if we have determined that it is necessary to share Personal Data about you to comply with applicable law or any obligations thereunder, including cooperation with law enforcement, judicial orders, and regulatory inquiries; (iii) to protect the interests of, and ensure the safety of us, our users, a third party or the public; (iv) to exercise or defend legal claims; and (v) to enforce our terms and conditions, other applicable terms of service, or other agreements.
In connection with an asset sale or purchase, a share sale, purchase or merger, bankruptcy, or other business transaction or re-organization, in our legitimate interests. In the event that TaxBit is involved in a merger, acquisition, sale, bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, assignment or the application of laws or change of control, there may be a disclosure of information about you.
5. Cookies
A cookie is a small software file stored temporarily or placed on your computer’s hard drive. The main purpose of a cookie is to allow a web server to identify a user’s computer and browser, and tailor web pages and/or login information to their preferences. Cookies help us promptly display the information needed to use the capabilities of the Service and other information which we consider to be of interest to visitors to the TaxBit Website and users of the Service. By gathering and remembering information about website preferences through cookies, we can provide a better web and marketing experience. Cookies don’t give us access to users’ computers, and the information we collect through cookies doesn’t include Personal Data.
When you or your agents or end users use the Service, we utilize session cookies, which allow us to uniquely identify your browser while you are logged in and to process your online transactions. Session cookies disappear from your computer when the web browser is closed or your computer is turned off. We also utilize persistent cookies to identify TaxBit Agents and users and make it easier for them to log into and use the Service. Persistent cookies remain on computers after the web browser is closed or the computer is turned off.
We utilize various categories of cookies, which are summarized below along with the options available to you to manage them.
Essential: Essential cookies are those that are critical to the functionality of the Service. We use these cookies to keep an agent or end user logged into the Service and remember relevant information when the agent or end user returns to the Service.
Functional: We use functional cookies to track agents’ and end users’ activities in the Service, understand their preferences and improve their user experience. These cookies can also be used to remember configurations of the Service that our customers can customize.
Marketing: We engage third party providers to serve a variety of marketing cookies that enable us to track and analyze usage, navigational and other statistical information from visitors to the TaxBit Websites. This information does not include Personal Data though we may re-associate this information with Personal Data we have collected when it is received. Marketing cookies are also used to track the performance of our advertisements and are employed by third party advertising networks that we utilize. These advertising networks follow online activities of visitors to the TaxBit Websites and use this information to inform, optimize and serve tailored advertisements on the TaxBit Websites or on other websites they visit that we believe would most effectively promote the Service to you. We also use third parties to collect information that assists us in other methods of re-marketing our Service to visitors to the TaxBit Websites, including customized email communications.
You can generally accept or decline the use of cookies through a functionality built into your web browser. Individuals within the European Economic Area (“EEA”) will be asked for consent prior to the setting of cookies.
Many jurisdictions require or recommend that website operators inform users as to the nature of the cookies they utilize and, in certain circumstances, obtain the consent of their users to the placement of certain cookies. It is your responsibility to inform the individuals with whom you interact using the Service, including your agents and end users as to the types of cookies utilized in the Service and, as necessary, to obtain their consent. If you require more specific information as to the nature of the cookies utilized in the Service for purposes of fulfilling these obligations, please contact us by email at [email protected].
6. Web Beacons
We also may employ web beacons to help us better manage content in the Service by informing us what content is effective. Web beacons are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of internet users. Unlike cookies, which are stored on a user’s computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on websites. We tie the information gathered by web beacons to Personal Data we otherwise collect, and use them in our HTML-based emails to learn which emails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns as well as to operate and improve the Service. You can opt-out of these emails by following the unsubscribe instructions within such marketing emails.
7. Do Not Track Signals
We do not currently respond to web browsers Do Not Track signals. If we do so in the future, we will provide all relevant information in this Policy. To learn more about “Do Not Track” signals, you can visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com/.
8. Your Rights
TaxBit aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to exercise certain rights regarding Personal Data about you that may be provided under applicable law.
Please note that a number of these rights only apply in certain circumstances, and all of these rights may be limited by law. For example, where fulfilling your request would adversely affect other individuals or our trade secrets or intellectual property, where there are overriding public interests or where we are required by law to retain your Personal Data.
To exercise any of the below rights, you can contact [email protected]. We will respond to requests to exercise these rights without undue delay and at least within one month (though this may be extended by a further two months in certain circumstances). To fulfill your request, we will need to verify your identity and ask for additional information and documents.
Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request related to personal information collected about you. To designate an authorized agent, the authorized agent must provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify that they have been authorized by you to act on their behalf.
California. Where applicable, if you are a California resident you may have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) in relation to “personal information” we have collected about you as defined in the CCPA; these rights are subject to verification and any applicable exceptions:
- Right to Know/Access:
- The specific pieces of personal information collected;
- The categories of personal information collected;
- The categories of sources from whom the personal information is collected;
- The purpose for collecting the personal information; and
- The categories of third parties with whom we have shared the personal information.
- Right to Delete: The right to request that we delete the personal information.
- Freedom from Discrimination: The right to be free from unlawful discrimination for exercising any of the rights above.
EEA or the UK. If you are located in the EEA or the UK, you have certain rights in relation to Personal Data about you:
- Access: You have the right to access Personal Data we hold about you, how we use it, and who we share it with.
- Portability: You have the right to receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you and to request that we transfer it to a third party, in certain circumstances and with certain exceptions.
- Correction: You have the right to correct any of your Personal Data we hold that is inaccurate.
- Erasure: In certain circumstances, you have the right to delete the Personal Data we hold about you.
- Restriction of processing to storage only: You have the right to require us to stop processing the Personal Data we hold about you, other than for storage purposes, in certain circumstances.
- Objection: You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data.
- Objection to marketing: You can object to marketing at any time by unsubscribing from communications.
- Withdrawal of consent: Where we rely on consent to process your Personal Data, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by emailing us at [email protected].
Complaints. If you think we have infringed data protection laws, you can file a claim with the data protection supervisory authority in the EEA country in which you live or work or where you think we have infringed data protection laws, or with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, as applicable to you.
9. Links to Other Websites
The Service contains links to websites and applications other than the Service, including websites and applications operated by affiliates and other third parties . Please be aware that we do not determine and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of websites and applications operated by third parties. We encourage you to be aware when you leave the Service, and read the privacy statements of third party websites and applications linked to the Service. TaxBit does not endorse and is not responsible for the practices of these third parties or their websites or applications. This Policy applies only to information collected by the Service.
10. Public Forums
The Services offer publicly-accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information provided in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them.
11. Customer Testimonials, Comments, & Reviews
From time to time, we post customer testimonials on our Website, which may contain Personal Data.
12. Protection of Information
TaxBit is committed to ensuring the security of your Personal Data. We utilize precautions to protect the confidentiality and security of the Personal Data within the Service by employing technical, physical, and organizational safeguards and carefully-developed security procedures. However, no internet, e-mail or other electronic transmission is ever fully secure or error free, so you should take care in deciding what information you send to us in this way. Any information you send us through any means is transmitted at your own risk.
13. International Data Transfers
If you interact with the Website or the Services outside of the United States (e.g. from within the EEA), the information that we collect from you will be transferred to, and stored in, the United States as is necessary to perform our contract with you and provide you the Services.
We also rely on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses to transfer personal data outside of the EU, including to our vendors.
Other countries may have different standards of protection to your own country and we may be required to disclose your data to governmental bodies in those countries in accordance with, or as required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.
Information about you, including Personal Data, may be transferred to – and maintained on – computers or servers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.
14. Data Retention
TaxBit will retain Personal Data that we process on behalf of our customers or that we directly collect from our customers for as long as needed to provide Service to our customers, subject to our compliance with this Policy or with other laws and regulations. We may further retain and use this Personal Data as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, maintain accurate accounting, financial and other operational records, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Different retention periods apply to different types of records and data. However, the longest your data will typically be held is seven (7) years from the date of your last transaction with TaxBit. This period may be extended where circumstances so require or until a particular query, investigation or dispute is fully resolved.
15. Children’s Personal Data
TaxBit does not knowingly collect any Personal Data from children under the age of 13. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Data to TaxBit through our Service, please contact us, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete that information from our databases.
16. Changes to the Privacy Policy
If we make any material changes to this Policy, we will notify you by email or by posting a prominent notice on the TaxBit Websites and/or take such other steps as required by applicable law. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. Your continued use of the Service constitutes your understanding of any such changes to this Privacy Policy.
17. Contact Us
If you have questions regarding this Policy or about the privacy practices of TaxBit, please contact us by email at [email protected].