Privacy
Policy

When you contact us or book a consultation

Your name, email address, phone number, the objective you select, your message and the appointment you choose. We also record the campaign details in the link you arrived from (such as utm_source), the referring page, the first page you visited, your IP address and your browser's user agent, so we can see how people find us and keep our forms free of abuse.

When you become a client

Your account details and preferred language, the documents you upload, your messages with your preparer, the status of your return, and the consents you sign, each recorded with the date, time, IP address and version you agreed to.

When you apply to work with us

Your contact details, location, experience, credentials such as your PTIN, availability, language skills, your answers to our questions, and your resume and any documents you upload.

Automatically, when you use the platform

Technical information needed to run and secure it, such as IP address, browser type, pages requested and error logs. We measure site traffic with privacy-focused analytics provided by our hosting provider, which counts visits without cookies and without identifying you.

We use only the cookies the platform needs to work:

• A sign-in session cookie for the client portal, the applicant status page and the staff console.
• An idle-timeout cookie that signs you out after 30 minutes of inactivity.
• A language cookie that remembers whether you chose English or Spanish.
• Short-lived cookies set by the bot-protection check on our forms, used only to tell people from automated traffic.

Our contact form also keeps the campaign details of your visit in your browser's session storage, which is cleared when you close the tab. We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking, and we do not sell or share your information for targeted advertising.

• To respond to your inquiry and schedule consultations.
• To prepare your returns and provide the services described in your engagement letter.
• To communicate with you by email, by phone, through the portal and, with your consent, by text message.
• To evaluate applications for preparer roles.
• To secure the platform, prevent fraud and abuse, and keep audit records.
• To meet our legal, regulatory and professional obligations.

We do not sell your personal information.

We use automated tools, including artificial intelligence, to organize and summarize applications and to score them against job-related criteria such as experience, credentials, availability and language skills. These tools assist our staff; they do not decide. A person on our staff reviews every application and makes every hiring decision.

The tools are not given protected characteristics such as race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information, and they are instructed not to consider them. If you have questions about how your application was evaluated, contact us using the details at the end of this policy.

Federal law restricts how tax return preparers use and disclose the information you give them to prepare your return. We use your tax return information to prepare your return and to provide the services you engage us for.

We do not use it for any other purpose, or disclose it to anyone else, unless you give us a separate signed consent that names the purpose, or the law allows the use or disclosure without consent (for example, to comply with a court order or a valid request from a tax authority). We ask for any such consent through the client portal. You may decline it, and you may revoke a consent you gave by contacting us.

As a tax preparer, we are a financial institution under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Federal Trade Commission's privacy and safeguards rules. We do not disclose nonpublic personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties except as the law permits, such as to service providers who help us operate under contracts that require confidentiality, to tax authorities when we file at your direction, or when the law requires it.

Because we do not share your information in ways that would require an opt-out, there is none to exercise. If that ever changes, we will tell you first and give you the choice.

• Service providers that host the platform and its database, deliver our email and text messages, protect our forms from automated abuse, and provide the AI tools described above. They process information on our behalf under contracts that limit its use to providing their service to us.
• Tax authorities such as the IRS and state revenue departments, when we file returns at your direction.
• People you ask us to work with, such as your attorney or financial advisor, with your consent.
• Authorities or others when the law requires it, or when needed to protect the rights, property or safety of our clients, our staff or the public, within the limits of section 7216.

Inquiries

Contact and booking details that do not become an engagement are kept for up to two years after our last contact, then deleted.

Client records

Kept while we provide services and for as long afterward as law and professional standards require, including the period the Internal Revenue Code requires preparers to keep copies or lists of the returns they prepare.

Applicant information

Kept for two years from your application, then deleted or anonymized, unless you are hired, in which case it becomes part of your personnel records.

Security and audit logs

Kept as long as needed to protect the platform and meet our legal obligations.

• Encryption in transit and at rest.
• Documents stored privately and opened only through signed links that expire within minutes.
• Multi-factor authentication required for every staff account.
• Access limited by role: preparers see only the clients assigned to them.
• An audit log of every staff view and download of a client or applicant document.
• Portal and console sessions that end after 30 minutes of inactivity.
• No Social Security number field in the portal, and no tax documents sent by email.
• Rate limits and bot protection on public forms.
• A written information security plan, summarized on our information security summary page.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your information occurs, we will notify you and the appropriate authorities as federal and state law require.

If you agree to receive text messages from us, such as appointment reminders and status updates, message frequency varies and message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop receiving them or HELP for help. We do not sell or share your mobile number or your text messaging consent with third parties for their marketing.

• Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it.
• Ask us to delete it, subject to the records we must keep by law.
• Revoke a section 7216 consent, or stop text messages, at any time.
• Choose English or Spanish for our communications.

Depending on where you live, state law may give you additional rights. Contact us and we will respond as the applicable law requires. We verify your identity before acting on a request.

The platform is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information online from them. Information about dependents that a parent or guardian provides for a tax return is handled as client information under this policy.

For privacy questions or requests, email aeternumtaxllc@gmail.com, call (619) 385-4324, or write to Aeternum Tax Services, PO Box 720215, Orlando, FL 32872.