Privacy Policy and Data Retention

Effective Date: 07/23/2024

Last Updated: 09/17/2026

The Tax Guy, Inc. is committed to protecting your personal information and complying with all applicable data privacy laws, including the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other federal or state regulations. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, retain, and protect your data.

1. Information We Collect

We collect personal and financial information necessary for tax preparation, payroll, and related services. This may include:

• Identifiable information (e.g., name, address, phone number, Social Security Number, taxpayer identification number, date of birth)
• Business information for legal-entity clients (e.g., legal name, EIN, CA EDD employer account number, ownership, workers’ compensation facts, Form 8655 / EDD POA signatures)
• Financial information (e.g., income, deductions, expenses, investments, payroll amounts)
• Documents related to tax preparation and payroll (e.g., W-2s, 1099s, receipts, and other financial records)
• Payment and funding information (e.g., card details for invoices; tokenized checking-account credentials such as routing and account identifiers, available balance, and account-holder name/address used to originate wage ACH)
• Books-import data when you connect a chart-of-accounts Financial Account through Plaid (transaction descriptions and amounts for bookkeeping)

2. How We Use Your Information

Your data will only be used for the following purposes:

• Preparation and filing of your tax returns
• Payroll calculation and, for enrolled employers, administering ACH of wages and tax from the employer’s authorized checking account to employees and to IRS/EDD
• Communication related to tax preparation, payroll, and advisory services
• Compliance with federal and state laws and regulations
• Internal business purposes, such as recordkeeping, audits, and fraud / NSF controls (for example, confirming available balance before an ACH debit)

We will never sell or share your information with third parties for marketing purposes. No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

If you opt-in to receive SMS notifications from us, please note that message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. You can reply STOP to opt-out of text messages at any time, or HELP for help.

3. Data Retention Policy

We retain your data only as long as necessary to fulfill our legal and business obligations, including IRS and EDD record-retention rules for tax and payroll.

4. Data Deletion Policy

We will securely delete your data when the retention period ends, or if you submit a valid deletion request, except where law requires us to keep it (for example, filed returns and payroll tax records).

5. Your Privacy Rights

Under applicable laws, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a portable copy of your data. Contact support@taxguyinc.com to exercise these rights.

6. Data Security Measures

We use industry-standard security measures including encryption, secure storage, access controls, and regular security audits. We do not store full operating-account numbers after Financial Connections tokenizes them; Stripe holds the payment method. We do not take title to Treasury balances. The Tax Guy, Inc. partners with Stripe Payments Company for money transmission services and account services with funds held at Fifth Third Bank, Member FDIC. USD balances in financial accounts (unless otherwise indicated) can be eligible for FDIC pass-through deposit insurance if they meet certain requirements. The accounts are eligible only to the extent permitted by the rules and regulations of the FDIC, and if the requirements for pass-through insurance are satisfied. The FDIC insurance applies up to 250,000 USD per depositor, per financial institution, for deposits held in the same ownership capacity.

7. Service providers (processors)

We share information with service providers only as needed to run the service. They are not permitted to use it for their own marketing. Those providers include:

• Stripe, Inc. — invoice payments; Stripe Connect destination charges for net wages; Financial Connections to tokenize the employer checking account and read available balance before wage ACH. Tax agencies ACH-debit that same employer account (EFTPS / DE 88). We do not hold payroll tax in a Stripe Treasury or firm vault.
• Plaid Inc. — optional books import (chart-of-accounts transactions). Plaid is not the payroll money rail.
• Google Cloud / Firebase — application hosting and encrypted storage in the United States.
• Tax agencies and authorized processors (IRS, CA EDD, SSA) when we file or remit on your behalf as reporting agent.
• Other operators we already disclose (for example Google Gmail for transactional email, DocuSeal for signing, ClickSend for IRS eFax).

We do not sell Financial Connections data and we do not share tokenized account credentials, balances, or ownership details with unaffiliated third parties for their independent use.

8. Data location

We store and process this data in the United States. We do not store Financial Connections or Treasury data outside the US. Stripe and our other US processors may handle the same data in the US to provide their services.

9. Updates to This Policy

This policy will be reviewed and updated annually or as required by changes in the law or in the products we offer (including payroll and Treasury).

For any questions, contact: support@taxguyinc.com, 484-382-9489 - (4TH) ETA-XGUY, 4 Charlton Ct, San Francisco, CA 94123