Liberty Tax Service

Privacy Statement


Online tax preparation has never been safer or more secure.

TRUSTe

 

At JTH Tax, Inc., doing business as Liberty Tax Service (“Liberty,” “we,” or “our”), we recognize the importance of protecting your personal information. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of your information and want you to know the protective measures we take.

This Website Privacy Policy concerns the information we collect when you view our websites and our affiliated companies’ websites, including, http://www.esmarttax.com/, www.esmarttax.com/ffa, http://www.freetax.com/, www.libertytax.com, www.libertytax.com/online, and http://www.taxbrain.com/, (collectively, our “Websites”). It also describes your choices regarding use, access and correction of your personal information. If you come to one of our offices for tax preparation you will be subject to a separate privacy policy disclosed to you when you use those services.

Liberty may also offer the ability to apply for financial products through various affiliated and non-affiliated companies. Our privacy policies, and those of our non-affiliated partners, may vary depending on the type of service or products offered. This privacy policy applies solely to our Websites.

If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party resolution provider (free of charge) here.

Information We Collect

If you use our Websites, we collect the following types of information:

Tracking Technologies. Technologies such as: cookies, beacons, tags and scripts are used by JTH Tax, Inc and our trusted marketing, advertising, and technology partners. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis.

We use cookies for online customer support, and analytics service providers. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some features or areas of our site may be limited.

Behavioral Targeting/Re-Targeting

We partner with a third party ad network to either display advertising on our Web site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and Web beacons to collect non-personal information about your activities on this and other Web sites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out by clicking here. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads.

We use Google AdSense to publish ads on this site. When you view or click on an ad a cookie will be set to help better provide advertisements that may be of interest to you on this and other Web sites. You may opt-out of the use of this cookie by visiting Google’s Advertising and Privacy page:  http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.

Log files. As is true of most web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We do not link this automatically collected data to other information we collect about you.

LSOs/ HTML5. We use Local Storage Objects (LSOs) such as HTML5 to store content information and preferences. Third parties with whom we partner to provide certain features on our site or to display advertising based upon your Web browsing activity use LSOs such as HTML 5 to collect and store information. Various browsers may offer their own management tools for removing HTML5 LSOs.

Voluntary Registration.  If you choose to submit your contact information to indicate an interest in either a franchise or tax course, we receive from you your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. If you choose to submit your e-mail address to indicate an interest in our electronic newsletter, we receive from you your e-mail address. We may receive your personal information, including (which includes, without limitation, your name, address, email or phone number) if you participate in any of our surveys or contests or if you request a service from us. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information.

Our website does not currently support “do not track” settings on your browser or have any similar mechanism that allows you to opt out of or otherwise control the collection of certain information about your online activities.

Tax Filing Information. If you choose to file your taxes with Liberty, we collect your SSN and DOB, as required, to complete your tax return.

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our website, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the website. JTH Tax, Inc. stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the performance of our referral program.

Your friend may contact us at promotions@libtax.com to request that we remove this information from our database.

How We May Use the Information

We may use your information collected in the Websites to provide the services or products you requested, to process transactions that you initiate, to improve our services and Websites, for marketing or promotional purposes and to contact you regarding our services or your use of the Websites.

Information We Disclose

We will share your personal information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this privacy policy. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

Affiliated and non-affiliated third parties may be given access to your information only as permitted by law or upon your express authorization to process the transactions which you have engaged us to perform. Our affiliated and non-affiliated third parties may offer you the opportunity to receive information concerning their products and services. If you elect to receive such communications from these third-parties, we may share your name and contact information.

If you have inputted information into our website to express an interest in being contacted about tax courses, your information is transferred to a local Liberty Tax Service office, most of which are franchised, so the office may contact you. Also, we may contact you directly about a tax course in one of our offices, or an online tax course, or we may contact you about franchise opportunities with us.

If you entered your contact information into our website to express an interest in being contacted about a franchise opportunity, we use your information to contact you about this opportunity.

If you submitted your e-mail address to sign up for our electronic newsletter, we use your e-mail address to e-mail our newsletter to you and we may contact you about franchise opportunities with us. Out of respect for your privacy, you may choose to stop receiving our newsletter or marketing emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in these emails, accessing the email preferences in your account settings page or you can contact us at privacy@libtax.com.

If you submitted your e-mail address to us for any purpose, we may contact you to invite you to prepare your tax return with us.

If you submit your personal information for the purposes of preparing and filing your tax returns, our use or disclosure of that information may be limited by the Internal Revenue Code, § 7216, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and other law. We will not use or disclose to third parties your tax information for any other purpose other than the preparing, assisting you in preparing, or filing your tax return, unless you authorize us by providing to us written consent to use or disclose or unless expressly required or authorized by law or pursuant to a court order.

We may disclose your information to non-affiliated third parties that perform operational, marketing or accounting services for us. Our sharing of information may be with a financial product provider with whom we have a joint-marketing agreement or non-financial companies that provides technical services such as software services. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us. Such sharing will be done in accordance with applicable law.

In certain situations, JTH Tax, Inc. may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

 We may also disclose or transfer your information in response to legal process such as to comply with a subpoena, or similar legal process or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request, where required by applicable law, or if we are acquired by or merged with another company. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, you will be notified a prominent notice on our Website(s) of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.

Updating Your Information

Upon request, Alipes will provide you with information about whether we hold, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information. To request this information please contact us at  

 If you are using our Websites to prepare and file your tax returns, you may update your log in and password information by logging into your account or by contacting customer support at onlinesupport@libtax.com. Other information we collect as described in this privacy policy is not stored in an online accessible format or does not identify you personally. For all other inquiries related to your information, including updating or deactivation, deleting or no longer using your submitted information please contact us via privacy@libtax.com or by postal mail to JTH Tax, Inc. c/o Privacy, 1716 Corporate Landing Parkway, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23454. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

 We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services or as required under applicable law. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Information Security

We maintain physical, electronic and procedural security measures that comply with applicable legal and regulatory standards to safeguard your personal information. Access to such information is restricted to those employees who are trained in the proper handling of client information and have a legitimate business need to access that information. We follow generally accepted standards, such as encryption and secure socket layer technology, to protect the personal information you submit to us, whether that information is in transit or at rest. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can contact us at privacy@libtax.com.

Additional Information

Links to 3rd Party Sites. Our Website(s) includes links to other Web sites whose privacy practices may differ from ours. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any Web site you visit.

Blogs. Our Web site offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why. Our blog is also managed by a third party application that may require you to register to post a comment. We do not have access or control of the information posted to the blog. You will need to contact or login into the third party application if you want the personal information that was posted to the comments section removed. To learn how the third party application uses your information, please review their privacy policy. 

Social Media Widgets. Our Web site includes Social Media Features, such as the Facebook Like button and Widgets, such as the Share this button or interactive mini-programs that run on our site. These Features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the Feature to function properly. Social Media Features and Widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Site. Your interactions with these Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Acceptance of These Terms

You understand that any information you provide to us through any of the Websites shall be governed by this privacy policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you should not use the Websites. Your continued use of the Websites indicates your acceptance of these terms.  

This privacy policy is effective December 1, 2016.

Because privacy is important, we pledge to work with you to protect and safeguard the security of your personal customer information. If this privacy policy changes, we will notify you of the changes by posting a notice on our Websites. If we make any material changes we will notify you by means of a notice on this Site prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, you may contact us by e-mail at privacy@libtax.com or by mail at Privacy, Liberty Tax Service, 1716 Corporate Landing Parkway, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23454.