Privacy Notice
Effective January 1, 2025
Federal law requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your personal information. This notice describes our practices under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the FTC Safeguards Rule, which apply to paid tax preparers.
- Why?
- Financial companies, including tax preparers, choose how they share your personal information. Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some but not all sharing, and requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your personal information. Please read this notice carefully.
- What?
- The types of personal information we collect and share depend on the service you have with us. This information can include:
- Social Security number, date of birth, and government-issued ID
- Income, wage, and employment information
- Investment, retirement, and account balances
- Dependent and household information
- Bank and payment information used to file or receive refunds
- How?
- All financial companies need to share customers' personal information to run their everyday business. The table below lists the reasons financial companies can share their customers' personal information, whether we share for that reason, and whether you can limit the sharing.
Reasons we can share your personal information
| Reason | Do we share? | Can you limit? |
|---|---|---|
| For our everyday business - to prepare your return, e-file with the IRS and state agencies, process payments, and respond to tax notices on your behalf | Yes | No |
| For our marketing - to offer our own services to you | No | We don't share |
| For joint marketing with other financial companies | No | We don't share |
| For affiliates' everyday business or marketing | No | We don't share |
| For non-affiliates to market to you | No | We don't share |
How we protect your personal information
To protect your personal information from unauthorized access and use, we maintain a written information security plan in line with the FTC Safeguards Rule, which includes:
- Encryption of files in transit and at rest
- Multi-factor authentication for staff accounts and tax-software logins
- Access limited to staff who need the information to do their job
- Locked physical storage for any paper records
- Annual review of safeguards and vendor practices
- A documented incident response plan
How we collect your personal information
We collect your personal information, for example, when you:
- Provide tax forms, identification, or financial documents
- Use our secure document upload form
- Make payments or provide bank information for direct deposit
- Contact us by email, phone, or in person
We also receive your personal information from third parties, for example the IRS, state tax agencies, employers, financial institutions, and brokerages when those parties send us tax forms at your request.
How long we keep your information
We retain client records for the period required by IRS recordkeeping rules (generally seven years) and then securely destroy them. You may request earlier deletion of records that are not subject to those retention requirements.
Definitions
Affiliates - companies related by common ownership or control. The Tax Lady has no affiliates.
Non-affiliates - companies not related by common ownership or control. We do not share with non-affiliates so they can market to you.
Joint marketing - a formal agreement between non-affiliated financial companies that together market financial products or services to you. We do not engage in joint marketing.
Questions?
Call (210) 555-0123 or email THE-TAX-LADY-EMAIL@example.com.
Changes to this notice
If we materially change how we handle your personal information, we will update this notice and post the revised version here. Please check back periodically.