Privacy

Nearby Tax (we, our, or us) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what is collected when you visit this website or engage these services, how it is used, and the choices you have.

The short version

This site collects a name, an email address, a category, and whatever you write in the contact form. It uses Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, which set cookies, to understand how the site is used. It runs no advertising, and nothing collected here is sold or shared for marketing.

Information we collect

Information you provide

The contact form asks for four things:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Which kind of work you need
• A description of your situation

It collects nothing else. There is deliberately no field for a Social Security number, an ITIN, a date of birth, or a financial account number, and you should not put any of those in the message. A submission that appears to contain an identifying number is rejected rather than delivered.

Information collected automatically

Two analytics tools collect information about how you use the site: the pages you view, how you arrived, how you scroll and click, your device and browser, and your approximate location. They are described under cookies and analytics below. The network that serves the site also keeps short lived technical logs of requests, as part of serving and protecting it. Those logs are the host's, are used for security and reliability, and are not used to profile visitors.

Information given to prepare a return

Tax documents are exchanged by email, outside this website, and only after a fee has been agreed. Nothing of that kind is collected through this site.

How we use your information

Information collected here is used only to:

• Reply to your inquiry and work out whether the work is a fit
• Agree a fee and an engagement with you
• Prepare and support the work you engage
• Meet record keeping obligations that apply to a preparer
• Keep the site working and protect it from abuse
• Understand which pages are useful and where the site is hard to use

It is not used for advertising. There is no newsletter and no marketing list, so sending an inquiry does not sign you up to anything.

How we share your information

Personal information is not sold, traded, or transferred for marketing. It is shared only in these cases:

• Service providers. The providers that host this site and that handle inquiries sent through it necessarily process that data in order to do so. Google and Microsoft receive the analytics information described under cookies and analytics.
• Legal requirements. Where the law, a regulation, or a valid legal process requires disclosure.
• With your consent. Where you have asked for it, such as a filing you authorize.

Data security

The measures that apply here are the ones this site actually has:

• Everything is served over an encrypted connection
• An inquiry is stored so that one is not lost before it is answered. What is kept is what you typed: your name, your email address, what you said you need, and your message, with the date and the country your request came from
• The form checks for a Social Security number or ITIN before anything is saved, and refuses the inquiry if it finds one. The check recognizes the usual ways these numbers are written, but no automated check catches every form, so please do not include one at all
• Your IP address is not saved with your inquiry. To limit repeated submissions, a one-way hash of it is kept as a counter for up to an hour and then deleted automatically
• There is no account, no stored password, and no payment data anywhere on the site

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. What is described here reduces the amount of information at risk rather than promising that nothing can go wrong.

Your rights and choices

You can ask to:

• Access the personal information held about you, and know why it is held
• Correct information that is wrong or incomplete
• Delete it, where no legal or professional obligation requires it to be kept
• Receive a copy of it in a portable form
• Object to or restrict how it is used

Write to [email protected]. Requests are answered within one month, and you will not be treated differently for asking.

California residents have these rights under California law, along with the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. Personal information is not sold, and analytics are not used for cross context behavioral advertising. You can also stop the analytics yourself, as the next section describes. Requests go to the same address.

Cookies and analytics

This site uses two analytics tools. Both set cookies in your browser.

• Google Analytics counts visits and shows how people find and move through the site. Its cookies begin with _ga. Google's advertising features and Google Signals are turned off, so this information is not used to show you ads.
• Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used, including mouse movement, clicks, and scrolling, so that confusing pages can be found and fixed. Its cookies include_clck and _clsk. Text on the page and anything you type are masked before a recording is sent, so the contents of the contact form are never captured.

There are no advertising cookies. Neither tool receives your name, email address, or message. Google and Microsoft handle this information under their own privacy statements.

If you are in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area, or Switzerland, neither tool sets a cookie unless you choose Accept in the cookie banner. Choosing Decline keeps them off, and the site works the same either way. Elsewhere, the banner is a notice and the tools run unless you stop them as described below. In those regions and in the United States, Cookie Settings at the bottom of every page lets you change your choice at any time; choosing Decline there also removes the analytics cookies already set.

To stop both, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser. Where it is on, this site does not load either tool, so neither sets a cookie or receives anything from your visit. Some browsers have it built in, and others offer it as a setting or an extension. Blocking these scripts with a content blocker has the same effect. Clearing cookies on its own does not: the next page you open loads the tools again and sets new ones. Google also offers abrowser add-on that stops Google Analytics on every site. The site works the same either way.

How long we keep your information

Client records, including returns and the documents behind them, are kept for as long as tax law and professional rules require. An inquiry is kept for as long as it takes to answer it and to keep a record of work discussed, and is deleted on request where no legal or professional obligation requires it to be kept. An inquiry that never became an engagement is not kept indefinitely for marketing, because there is no marketing list to keep it for. Analytics data is kept according to the retention settings of Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity.

Visitors in the UK, EEA and Switzerland

If you are in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area, or Switzerland, data protection law, including the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR, gives you the rights listed above. Nearby Tax is the controller of your personal information.

Why we use your information. We rely on these legal bases:

• Contract: to provide the services you engage, and to take steps you ask for before an engagement, such as answering an inquiry.
• Legal obligation: to meet tax, record keeping, and professional requirements.
• Legitimate interests: to keep the site secure and working, and to run the practice.
• Consent: for the analytics cookies described above, which are set only if you accept them. You can withdraw consent at any time through Cookie Settings.

Where your information is stored. The practice is based in the United States, and your information is stored and processed there, where data protection law may differ from yours. It is transferred there because that is necessary to provide the services you ask for.

Complaints. If you are unhappy with how your information is handled, please write to us first. You also have the right to complain to your data protection authority: the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK, or the supervisory authority in your EEA country or Switzerland.

Third party links

This site links to external sources such as the Internal Revenue Service and state revenue departments. Those sites are not under our control and have their own privacy practices. Read theirs before giving them anything.

Children's privacy

These services are not directed at anyone under 18, and information is not knowingly collected from children. If you believe a child has sent us information, write to [email protected] and it will be deleted.

Professional standards

Information given to prepare a return is also protected by the confidentiality rules that apply to CPAs and to paid preparers of federal returns, which are stricter than this policy. It is used only for the work you have agreed and is not disclosed without your consent except where the law requires it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the last updated date at the top of this page changes with it. Material changes will be described rather than made quietly.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, or a request about your information, can go to: