1. Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Effective: December 17, 2020

Purpose and Introduction

Thank you for visiting the TPS Unlimited, Inc. d/b/a TaxJar (“TaxJar”, “us”, “we”, “our”) website and reviewing our privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”). We know that you care about how the personal information we receive about you (“Personal Information”) is used and shared, so we take your privacy seriously and are committed to protecting your rights. Whenever possible, we have chosen to use plain language and transparency in order to make sure that you fully understand our privacy practices.

This privacy policy:

  • Explains the types of Personal Information we may collect from and about you, as well as how we may disclose, use and protect that information.
  • Applies to information we collect about visitors to the TaxJar website (the “Site”) and users of TaxJar’s [state sales tax preparation and submission services] (the “Services”).
  • Applies to current and former customers of TaxJar as well as to those visitors to the TaxJar website who do not become customers of TaxJar.
  • It does not apply to the practices of third parties that TaxJar does not own or control, or to individuals that TaxJar does not employ or manage.

The following sections outline the types of Personal Information TaxJar handles on your behalf and what our practices are for ensuring the protection and privacy of that Personal Information. The completeness and accuracy of the data you provide to TaxJar is initially your responsibility.

Types of Personal Information Collected

Personal Information that you provide through the Services: When you visit the Site or use the Services, we may collect Personal Information about you when you voluntarily provide such information, including from the following categories and sources:

  • Information we receive when you create an account or request services or information from us or companies with whom we have business relationships, or when you complete surveys or polls, such as your name, address, e-mail address and payment or billing information.
  • Information to prepare your sales tax return.
  • Information we collect via APIs which include your transaction history.
  • Information we receive when providing technical or customer support for you.
  • Information we receive when you apply for job openings.

Sales Tax Information

In order to prepare your relevant sales tax return documentation and history, we collect information about you, such as:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Tax Identification Number
  • Business Information, as well as your online transaction history and sales taxes collected
  • Total previous tax payments
  • Other relevant information needed to process your returns

Collectively, this information is known as “Sales Tax Information”. Please note, however, Sales Tax Information relating to our customers' customers is processed pursuant to our agreements with our customers, and not this Privacy Policy. If you are a customer of one of our customers and have any questions about such processing of Sales Tax Information, please contact the appropriate customer.

Information You Provide to Us When Applying for Job Openings

When you apply for a current opening, you may choose to provide us with certain categories of Personal Information like your name, e-mail address, phone number, address, nationality, and details over your employment experience, skills, affiliations, and education and professional certifications. We will use this Personal Information to assess your candidacy for a position. Resumes and other documentation provided to us may be shared with and reviewed by our Human Resources staff and hiring managers in the United States using secure, cloud-based solutions.

Personal Information We Receive Automatically

When you interact with TaxJar through the Site or Services, we receive and store certain information, which is collected passively using various technologies, and cannot presently be used to specifically identify you.

TaxJar may store this information itself or such information may be included in databases owned and maintained by TaxJar affiliates, agents or service providers. The Services may use such information and pool it with other information to track, for example, the total number of visitors to our Site, the number of visitors to each page of our Site, and the domain names of our visitors' Internet service providers. It is important to note that no Personal Information is available or used in this process.

Cookies

We may also collect information through the use of a software technology called “cookies.” Internet cookies allow us to customize our website for you by placing small files on your computer as you visit various components of the Site.

Through the use of cookies, we can display only those items that may be of interest to you on a particular site, or make it easier for you to access your account information. Information we collect through Internet cookies does not identify you personally.

You can choose to decline cookies while at our website, however, this may limit your ability to access certain areas of the website. Most browsers accept and maintain cookies by default.

Beacons

We also may employ a software technology called beacons or tracking pixels that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is effective and which pages visitors view. These pixels are a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Web users. Like cookies, these pixels are not tied to users’ personally identifiable information.

Log Files

Like most standard website servers, we use log files. Information collected in log files may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks. We utilize this information to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

Advertising

Advertising networks that serve ads on our website may assign a different cookie to you. These cookies may be used to select which ads you see and determine the effectiveness of this advertising. You may choose to decline cookies from third-party ad servers, which TaxJar does not control, without prejudice to your ability to use the Site or Services.

Aggregated Personal Information

In an ongoing effort to better understand and serve our users, TaxJar may sometimes conduct research on its customer demographics, interests and behavior based on the Personal Information and other information provided to us. This research may be compiled and analyzed on an aggregate basis, and TaxJar may share this aggregate data with its affiliates, agents and business partners. This aggregate information does not identify you personally. TaxJar may also disclose aggregated user statistics in order to describe our services to current and prospective business partners, and to other third parties for other lawful purposes.

Analytics

We may (and we may allow third party service providers to) use cookies or other technologies to collect information about your browsing activities over time and across different websites following your use of the Services. For example, we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze how users use the Site and enhance your experience when you use the Service. For more information on how Google uses this data, go to www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

Our Service currently does not respond to “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals and operates as described in this Privacy Policy whether or not a DNT signal is received. If we do so in the future, we will describe how we do so in this Privacy Policy.

Personal Information Use and Processing

TaxJar uses the Personal Information you provide in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy. If you provide Personal Information for a certain reason, we may use the Personal Information in connection with the reason for which it was provided. Taxjar processes Personal Information as necessary to perform our contract with you as follows:

  • If you contact us by email, we will use the Personal Information you provide to answer your question or resolve your problem. Also, if you provide Personal Information in order to obtain access to our Services, we will use your Personal Information to provide you with access to such Services and to monitor your use of such Services.
  • We use your Sales Tax Information to prepare and present your sales tax summary, and to provide related support and services. TaxJar and its subsidiaries and affiliates (the “Related Companies”) may also use your Personal Information and other personally non-identifiable information collected to help us improve the content and functionality of our services, to better understand our users and to improve our services. TaxJar and its affiliates may use this information to contact you in the future to tell you about services we believe will be of interest to you. If we do so, each marketing communication we send you will contain instructions permitting you to "opt-out" of receiving future marketing communications.
  • We offer various communication services (such as contact us forms or chat) to speak with a support or sales representative. All chats and contact forms are encrypted but you should not supply more personal or tax information than is required to address your specific issue. A transcript of the session is generated and retained, and may be used to resolve current and potential future questions or issues.
  • We retain the history of your transactions. This information may also be used to provide you with a copy of your sales tax history for your convenience.

Taxjar processes Personal Information as necessary for the following legitimate business interests:

  • To respond to your inquiries, comments, feedback or questions;
  • To manage our relationship with you, which includes sending administrative information to you relating to our Service and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies, and asking you to leave a review or take a survey;
  • To analyze how you interact with our Service and provide, maintain and improve the content and functionality of the Service and our customer relationships and experiences, develop our business and inform our marketing strategy;
  • To administer and protect our business and the Site, prevent fraud, criminal activity, or misuses of our Site, and to ensure the security of our IT systems, architecture and networks (including troubleshooting, testing, system maintenance, support and hosting of data); and
  • To comply with legal obligations and legal process and to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or other third parties, and enforce our terms and policies.

If TaxJar intends on using any Personal Information in any manner that is not consistent with this Privacy Policy, you will be informed of such anticipated use prior to or at the time at which the Personal Information is collected.

Marketing. We may contact you to provide information we believe will be of interest to you. For instance, if you elect to provide your email address, we may use that information to send you promotional information about our products and services. If we do, where required by law, for example if you are in the EU, we will only send you such emails if you consent to us doing so at the time you provide us with your Personal Data. You may opt out of receiving emails by following the instructions contained in each promotional email we send you or by contacting us. If you unsubscribe from our marketing lists, you will no longer receive marketing communications but we will continue to contact you regarding our Site and Services and to respond to your requests.

Disclosures of Personal Information to Third Parties

TaxJar is not in the business of selling your personal or sales tax return information to anyone. There are, however, certain circumstances in which we may share your Personal Information with certain third parties without further notice to you, as set forth below and in the section above:

  • We may use service companies on our behalf to perform certain business-related functions. Examples of such functions include mailing information, maintaining databases and processing payments. When we employ another entity to perform a function of this nature, we only provide them with the information that they need to perform their specific function.
  • We may disclose your name or testimonials that you provide for advertising or marketing purposes.
  • We may disclose your information to affiliates or non-affiliated third parties when we have a good faith belief that such disclosure is required by law. This may occur in connection with a court order, legal process, or other judicial, administrative or investigative proceeding that produces a request for information from TaxJar.
  • Should we sell, merge or transfer any part of our business, part of that sale may include your personal information. In the event of a corporate sale, merger, reorganization, dissolution or similar event, Personal Information may be part of the transferred assets.
  • If we are compelled to surrender Personal Information to legal authorities if presented with a court subpoena or similar legal or administrative order, or as required or permitted by the laws, rules and regulations of any nation, state or other applicable jurisdiction.

Third Party Services

In connection with the promotion or your use of the Services, the Services may enable linking with various third-party services and products (“Third Party Services”). These Third-Party Services may include tax return preparation, refund processing, professional tax review and audit defense, among others. If you decide to use Third Party Services, you are responsible for reviewing and understanding the terms and conditions governing any Third-Party Services.

When you add a Third-Party Service account to the Service, we will collect relevant information necessary to enable the Service to access that Third-Party Services and your data contained within that Third-Party Service.

As part of such integration, the Third-Party Service will provide us with access to certain information that you have provided to Third Party Service, and we will use, store and disclose such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. However, please remember that the manner in which Third-Party Services use, store and disclose your information is governed solely by the policies of such third parties. You agree that the third-party provider, and not TaxJar, is solely responsible for the performance of the Third-Party Services.

Data Privacy by Design and by Default

Data protection is a significant consideration in all that we do at TaxJar. We design and implement processes and technologies that allow us to collect Personal Information that is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the related purposes of processing. We try to only allow for the collection of necessary data and prevent the intake of irrelevant data.

The Personal Information we collect and need to run our business and provide our products and services is not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with the specified, explicit, and legitimate original purposes of collection. To us, data protection must be the default whenever we handle Personal Information and not just an optional privilege for individuals.

Transparency and Consent

Our methods of consent and our privacy notices are presented in a fashion that is comprehensible, easily accessible, in clear and plain language, and clearly distinguishable from the other matters. We offer consent only in circumstances where it is freely given. If we seek to rely on your consent in order to process certain Personal Information, you have the right to withdraw your consent subsequently. This does not affect the lawfulness of the processing based on consent before its withdrawal. As it pertains to marketing, if at any time you prefer not to receive further communications from us in any or all forms, you will have the ability to unsubscribe from such communications by means of a link provided in every email that is sent to you by us or by sending in a request via this form.

Information Security

TaxJar has technological and operational security processes in place to protect the Personal Information provided to us from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.

However, no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error free. In particular, email sent to or from our services may not be secure. Therefore, you should take special care in deciding what information you send to us via email. Please keep this in mind when disclosing any Personal Information to TaxJar via the Internet.

Furthermore, only authorized TaxJar employees will have access to information provided by you and each employee with access to Personal Information is obligated to maintain its confidentiality.

We are currently SOC 2 compliant with a commitment to undergoing third party annual reviews by an accredited CPA firm in order to maintain our SOC 2 compliant status. Our Security Page provides information regarding our Information Security Program. To promote transparency, we have published a security whitepaper which describes our approach in detail.

To report a security vulnerability, incident, or to ask a related question, please use our security request form to contact us.

How Long We Keep Personal Information

We keep your Personal Information only for as long as it is warranted to fulfill our commitments to you, or to adhere to legal or regulatory requirements. If you are a customer or partner, we keep the information for the duration of our relationship. Certain information may be kept for longer though, for instance contracts will be archived even when terminated.

If you have requested to receive marketing communications, we will keep your Personal Information only for as long as you interact with us. When Personal Information is expired, or is no longer needed and does not have to be retained, we may return, delete, destroy, or anonymize it, depending on what method is systematically and procedurally possible, most secure, and what our related retention commitments are. Where consent is the legal basis for which we process the Personal Information, your consent may be withdrawn at any time and you may be able to direct the manner in which your Personal Information is processed.

Collection and use of Children’s Personal Information

Please note that the website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children on the website. If TaxJar discovers that it has inadvertently collected Personal Information from anyone younger than the age of 18, it will delete that Personal Information when discovered.

Jurisdiction-specific Provisions

International Transfers of Personal Information

Our Site is hosted in the United States and information we collect will be stored and processed on our servers in the United States. Our employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that process information for us as described above may be located in the United States or in other countries outside of your home country; by using the Site, you consent to the international transfer of your information by TaxJar, as necessary to fulfill the requested services.

EU Privacy Rights

Scope. This section applies to individuals in the EU (for these purposes, reference to the EU also includes the European Economic Area countries of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the United Kingdom, and, to the extent applicable, Switzerland).

Data Controller. Taxjar is the data controller for the processing of your Personal Data. You can find our contact information [, and the contact information of our EU-based representative,] in the “Communication with us about Privacy” section below.

Legal Bases for Processing. The "Personal Information Use and Processing" section of this Privacy Policy describes the legal bases we rely on for the processing of your Personal Data. Please contact us if you have any questions about the specific legal basis we are relying on to process your Personal Data.

As used in this Privacy Policy, “legitimate interests” means our interests in conducting our business and developing a business relationship with you. This Privacy Policy describes when we process your Personal Data for our legitimate interests, what these interests are and your rights. We will not use your Personal Data for activities where the impact on you overrides our interests, unless we have your consent or those activities are otherwise required or permitted by law.

Your Rights. Under applicable laws and regulations, you may be able to exercise certain privacy rights depending on the territory or country you reside in. We will process your request in accordance with these applicable data protection laws. We may need to retain certain information for record-keeping purposes or to complete transactions that you began prior to requesting any deletion. These rights may include:

  • Right of Access: You may have the right to access the Personal Information that we hold about you.
  • Right to Rectification: You may have the right to require us to correct any inaccurate or incomplete Personal Information.
  • Right of Erasure: In certain circumstances, you may have the right to the erasure of Personal Information that we hold about you (for example if it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was originally collected).
  • Right to Data Portability: You may have the right to receive the Personal Information concerning you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format that can be shared with another organization. The right of data portability also allows you the opportunity to have TaxJar transmit that data to another organization directly where technically feasible.
  • Right to Object to Processing: You may have the right to request that TaxJar stop processing your Personal Information and/or to stop sending you marketing communications.
  • Right to Restrict Processing: You may have the right to request that we restrict processing of your Personal Information in certain circumstances (for example, where you believe that the Personal Information, we hold about you is not accurate or lawfully held).
  • Right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority: If you have a concern about our privacy practices, including the way we handled your Personal Data, you can report it to the data protection authority that is authorized to hear those concerns (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), who can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns, and in other EU countries the data protection authority of the country in which you are located).

When processing Personal Information gathered through our products and services, where TaxJar customers are data controllers, we shall work to assist our customers where necessary and able in responding to privacy requests and complaints from Individuals.

How to exercise your privacy rights under the GDPR

To exercise your rights as a data subject, please use our privacy request form. Under Request Type, please indicate which right your request is for and provide a description to help us understand the nature of your request.

In order to fulfill any rights requests, we are required to verify your identity. All requests will be fulfilled within 30 days from the date of identity verification, with notification to you upon completion, exceptions, or any requests for extensions. A TaxJar privacy team member will be assigned to your case and will assist you with your request until it is complete.

We prefer to resolve your questions, complaints, and requests about how we handle Personal Information directly; however, if you are a European resident, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authorities. For the contact information of the Data Protection Authorities for each European Union Member State, please click here.

United States - California residents

This section provides additional details about the personal information we collect about California consumers as well as the rights of California consumers under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

How We Collect, Use, and Disclose your Personal Information. The section “Types of Personal Information Collected” describes in detail the Personal Information we may have collected over the last 12 months, including identification information, internet activity information, and Sales Tax Information. We have collected such Personal Information directly from you and from your interaction with the Site and the Service.

We collect this information for the purposes described in the "Types of Personal Information Collected" and "Personal Information use and Processing" sections. We share this information with the categories of third parties described in the “Disclosures of Personal Information to Third Parties” and “Third Party Services” sections. TaxJar uses cookies, including advertising cookies, as described in our “Cookies and other technologies” section. We do not sell (as defined by the CCPA) your Personal Information.

Your CCPA Rights and Choices. As a California consumer and subject to certain limitations under the CCPA, you have choices regarding our use and disclosure of your personal information:

  • Exercising the right to know. You may request, up to twice in a 12-month period, the following information about the personal information we have collected about you during the past 12 months:
    • the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you;
    • the categories of sources from which we collected the personal information;
    • the business or commercial purpose for which we collected the personal information;
    • the categories of third parties with whom we shared the personal information; and
    • the categories of personal information about you that we disclosed for a business purpose, and the categories of third parties to whom we disclosed that information for a business purpose.
  • Exercising the right to delete. You may request that we delete the personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain limitations under applicable law.
  • Opt out of sales. California residents have the right to instruct businesses that sell their personal information to stop doing so. Taxjar, however, does not sell your personal information.
  • Non-discrimination. The CCPA provides that you may not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

How to exercise your privacy rights under the CCPA

To exercise your rights under the CCPA, please use our privacy request form. Under Request Type, please indicate which right your request is for and provide a description to help us understand the nature of your request. Your authorized agent may submit requests in the same manner.

In order to fulfill any rights requests, we are required to verify your identity so please be aware that we may need to request additional information that will be used for that purpose.

Exclusions

This Privacy Policy does not apply to any Personal Information collected by TaxJar other than Personal Information collected through the Services and by the means described in this policy. This Privacy Policy shall not apply to any unsolicited information you provide to TaxJar through our Services or through any other means. This includes, but is not limited to, information posted to any public areas of our services, such as forums, any ideas for new products or modifications to existing products, and other unsolicited submissions (collectively, “Unsolicited Information”). All Unsolicited Information shall be deemed to be non-confidential and TaxJar shall be free to reproduce, use, disclose, and distribute such Unsolicited Information to others without limitation or attribution.

Other Terms and Conditions

Your access to and use of our services is subject to the License Agreement for TaxJar Software and Services at https://www.taxjar.com/terms-of-service/.

Changes to our Privacy Statement

If we make a material change to this Privacy Policy, including a material change in the way we use any personal information collected on www.taxjar.com, we will notify you by using one of the following methods at least thirty (30) days prior to the effective date of such change:

  1. we will post a notice on our website describing the change; or
  2. we will send you electronic mail notifying you of the change. Your continued use of the Site or Services after such effective date shall indicate your agreement with the terms of such revised Privacy Policy.

Communication with us about Privacy

If you have privacy-related questions that are not addressed here, or to request access to an alternative format of this Privacy Policy, please contact the Privacy Team via email at our designated request address privacy@taxjar.com or by using our privacy request form.


View our previous Privacy Policy