Your business stays your business.

We spend our days inside other people's finances. That only works if what you tell us stays told. The rest of this page is the formal version of that sentence — what we collect, what we do with it, and how we keep it safe.

Effective date: [DATE]

Note: this policy is a starting template. It must be reviewed by legal counsel and finalized before launch, and the effective date above will be set when it is.

What we collect, and why.

We collect what the work requires. No more, and nothing for sport.

Information we collect

To do accounting, tax, and estate planning work, we necessarily collect sensitive information. Depending on the engagement, that may include: your name and contact details; Social Security numbers and other tax identification numbers; income, expense, asset, and account records; payroll and employee information for business clients; estate and beneficiary information; and copies of documents you provide, such as prior returns, statements, and notices.

We receive this information directly from you, from documents you authorize us to obtain, and — for this website — from what you choose to send through the contact form (name, contact details, and your message). Our web server may also keep routine technical logs, such as the time of a request and the page requested, for security and maintenance purposes.

How we use it

We use client information to perform the services you engage us for: preparing and filing tax returns, bookkeeping, planning, and related correspondence with tax authorities on your behalf; to communicate with you about your engagement; and to meet our legal, regulatory, and professional obligations.

Federal law places strict limits on how tax return information may be used or disclosed by preparers. In plain terms: we use your information to do your work and for purposes you authorize or the law permits — and that's it. We do not sell client information. We do not rent it. You will not end up on a marketing list because you hired an accountant.

How we guard it.

Confidentiality is not a feature of this trade. It is the trade.

Our financial privacy notice

As a provider of accounting and tax services, we are treated as a financial institution under the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and its safeguards and privacy rules. Consistent with that law and our professional obligations as CPAs:

We do not disclose nonpublic personal information about our clients or former clients to nonaffiliated third parties, except as permitted or required by law or as authorized by you. We restrict access to your nonpublic personal information to personnel who need it to provide services to you. And we maintain safeguards — described below — designed to protect that information.

Security measures

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect client information: access to client files is limited to the people working on them; physical records are kept in secured offices; electronic systems are protected with access controls; and we take care with how documents move — in person, by mail, or electronically.

No security program can promise perfection, and we won't pretend otherwise. What we can say is that we handle your information the way we'd want ours handled, and we review our practices as threats and standards evolve.

Cookies, vendors, and how long we keep things.

The website, the people we work with, and the eventual shredder.

Cookies & analytics

This website is built to be quiet. It does not run advertising trackers, social media pixels, or third-party analytics scripts, and it does not set cookies to follow you around the internet. Information you submit through the contact form is used to respond to you — nothing else. If we ever add analytics or similar tools to this site, this policy will be updated first to say so.

Third parties & service providers

Doing the work sometimes requires trusted tools and providers — for example, professional tax preparation software and electronic filing systems. Where service providers handle client information, they do so to support our services and subject to confidentiality obligations. Beyond that, we disclose client information only with your authorization or when the law requires it — for example, in response to a valid subpoena, court order, or regulatory inquiry.

Retention & disposal

We retain client records for as long as needed to serve you and as required by law and professional standards, which for tax and accounting records is typically a period of years. When records are no longer required, we dispose of them securely — paper is shredded, electronic data is deleted in a manner designed to prevent recovery. Nothing with your name on it goes out with the ordinary trash.

Your rights. Our door.

It's your information. You get to ask questions about it.

Your rights & choices

You may request copies of your own records and the returns we have prepared for you. You may ask us to correct information that is inaccurate. You may ask what information we hold about you and how it has been used, and you may opt out of any communication from us that isn't necessary to the work. Depending on where you live — California residents in particular — state law may give you additional privacy rights; we honor applicable ones.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, the effective date at the top of this page changes, and material changes will be communicated to current clients.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, our privacy practices, or your own records deserve a straight answer from a person. Call (714) 496-5661, or reach us through the contact page.

Fast Tax — offices in Orange County, CA and Las Vegas, NV. Serving clients in CA, NV & beyond.