Privacy Policy

Your Privacy is Important to Us

We highly value our clients’ trust and confidence in us and want to assure them that their personal information and business matters are treated as confidential to the extent permitted by law. We adhere to the highest level of professional ethical responsibility and obligations to protect the confidentiality of your information.

Where we refer to “personal information”, it means “personal information” as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) and “personal data” as per the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the GDPR). Personal information includes any information about a person (natural or juristic) that can be used to identify a person directly or indirectly.

This Privacy Notice explains the types of information we collect from our individual clients (referred to as “you”, or “your”) in order to provide personal tax return preparation and tax consulting services; how we may use or disclose that information; and the measures we take to safeguard that information. It applies to personal data provided to us, both by individuals themselves and/or by others. We may use personal data provided to us for any of the purposes described in this privacy policy or as otherwise stated at the point of collection.

This Privacy Policy further summarizes what information we collect, the limited times when we may share it with others, and how we protect our clients’ privacy.

TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

In order to meet our clients’ needs during tax preparation, tax and financial planning and tax compliance engagements, we collect various types of personal information about our clients from the following sources:

• Information we receive directly from you on tax preparation questionnaires, worksheets and surveys, or other documents used in preparing your tax returns or in providing other services to you, through meetings (in-person or virtual videoconferencing), telephone calls, by mail or email, and follow-up consultations with you (such as your name, address, social security number, family and marital status, and information about your income, assets, investments, liabilities, expenses and personal financial transactions);

• Information from federal and state tax forms and tax returns that we receive directly from you or from other financial service providers or tax preparation firms that you have authorized to give us this information; and

• Information from statements or records we receive from investment firms or other professionals that you have retained and directed to provide information directly to us

• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others. Such information may include, for instance, investment allocations and performance, investment objectives, parties to transactions, account balances, and payment history.

• Information we receive from you, or send to you, at your request if you contact us online. We will retain the information you provide us to deliver email messages to you. We may retain the content of your email messages, your email address, and our subsequent response to you.

Transaction information: This is information about your transactions with us and includes information necessary for billing and payment for our income tax preparation and financial planning services, as well as all correspondence between you and us. Transaction information would also include your payment history with us, billing records and any collection effort engaged in by us for payment of services rendered to you. 

 We collect, amongst others, the following personal information:

• personal details, such as your name, email address or telephone number;

• billing information, such as relevant payment information; and

• legally required information.

PARTIES TO WHOM WE DISCLOSE INFORMATION

As a general rule, we do not disclose personal information about our clients or former clients to anyone. However, to the extent permitted by law and any applicable state Code of Professional Conduct, certain nonpublic information about you may be disclosed in the following situations: 

• To comply with a validly issued and enforceable subpoena or summons. 

• In the course of a review of our firm’s practices under the authorization of a state or national licensing board, or as necessary to properly respond to an inquiry or complaint from such a licensing board of organization. 

• In conjunction with a prospective purchase, sale, or merger of all or part of our practice, provided that we take appropriate precautions (for example, through a written confidentiality agreement) so the prospective purchaser or merger partner does not disclose information obtained in the course of the review. 

• As a part of any actual or threatened legal proceedings or alternative dispute resolution proceedings either initiated by or against us, provided we disclose only the information necessary to file, pursue, or defend against the lawsuit and take reasonable precautions to ensure that the information disclosed does not become a matter of public record. 

• To provide information to affiliates of the firm and nonaffiliated third parties who perform services or functions for us in conjunction with our services to you, but only if we have a contractual agreement with the other party which prohibits them from disclosing or using the information other than for the purposes for which it was disclosed. (Examples of such disclosures include using an outside service bureau to process tax returns or engaging a records-retention agency to store prior year records.) 

We may share personal information with our affiliates to assist in our contact with you and to aid in providing tax and financial planning solutions and opportunities to you. We do not share personal information with unaffiliated third parties without your express consent, except as permitted by law. Where required for our business operations, we may share your personal information with our service providers. We have service agreements in place with all service providers with whom we share personal information, which regulate how personal information is processed. We do not share personal information with unaffiliated third parties without the client’s express consent, except as permitted by law and as described below.

We will only share personal information for the purpose of providing professional services to you or any other legitimate business purpose relating to our business activities, including but not limited to the protection of our or your rights, complaints, marketing or enforcing any agreement between us.

Where the law requires us to do so, we may also share personal information with third-party service providers, agents, contractors, employees, law enforcement agencies or business affiliates. We will only share personal information in these instances where it is necessary for us to do so and only to the extent that the personal information is needed for such third parties to perform their services or obligations.

In order to provide the Services, we may disclose Client Information to our affiliates and to non-affiliated companies that perform services to assist us in preparing or processing tax returns (“service provider”), such as companies that assist us with the organization, preparation, processing or mailing of tax preparation questionnaires, tax returns and statements of account. We require all service providers to have written contracts with us that specify appropriate uses of Client Information. 

We may disclose personal information under the following circumstances:

• with professional advisers, for example, law firms, as necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights and obtain advice in connection with the running of our business. Personal data may be shared with these advisers as necessary in connection with the services they have been engaged to provide;

• when explicitly requested by you;

• when required to deliver publications or reference materials requested by you;

• when required to facilitate conferences or events hosted by a third party;

• To law enforcement, regulatory and other government agencies and professional bodies, as required by and/or in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

GENERAL RESTRICTIONS ON DISCLOSURE OF NON-PUBLIC PERSONAL INFORMATION TO AFFILIATES AND NON-AFFLIATED THIRD PARTIES:

Lux Financial Solutions LLC use and disclosure of Client Information is controlled by Section 7216 of the Internal Revenue Code, the Gramm Leach Bliley Act of 1999, certain other laws, and Lux Financial Solutions LLC policies.

Section 7216 of the Internal Revenue Code requires we have your consent (“opt in”) before we disclose information that we obtain to prepare your tax return to affiliates or third parties, except the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and law enforcement officials, and except for certain disclosures for other lawful purposes (including disclosures to our service providers who assist us with tax return preparation). We will only disclose Client Information with your prior written consent, if that is required under Section 7216.

The Gramm Leach Bliley Act of 1999 requires we give you the option to prohibit disclosure of your non-public personal information to non-affiliated third parties for marketing purposes, if we will make such disclosures. That is referred to as an “opt out” right. We do not disclose Client Information to non-affiliated third parties for marketing purposes, so it is not necessary for us to provide you with the opportunity to opt out of having your information disclosed in this manner. We may use and disclose certain Client Information to enable other Lux Financial Solutions LLC to offer you investment advisory and financial planning services. To consent, you should sign a Section 7216 consent form. If you do not want us to use or disclose Client Information for these purposes, you should not sign a consent form. (See exceptions under heading "Parties To Whom We Disclose Information".)

NOTICE REGARDING ADVISOR-CLIENT PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS

You should also be aware that anything you tell us during the interview for the preparation of your tax return is confidential, but not protected from the IRS. Privileged communications (those that are protected from IRS authority to compel our testimony) are limited to non-criminal tax advice on matters before the IRS or non-criminal tax proceedings in federal courts. Although we consider any information you provide us as confidential, return preparation engagements are not covered by advisor-client privilege.

If you feel the nature of any subject matter to be discussed requires protected communications, please raise that issue so that we can discuss your possible need to consult with an attorney for legal advice.

PROTECTING THE CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Keeping your information confidential and secure is of utmost importance to us. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to guard your personal information. In doing so, we restrict access to your personal information to those employees who need to know that information to provide services to you and to the aforementioned support service companies. Those companies are, in turn, legally and contractually bound to maintain the privacy of any information shared with them. Our employees are bound by internal confidentiality policies and are subject to disciplinary action for any policy violations. 

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal information from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. Only authorized persons are given access to personal information; such individuals have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of this information.

Although we use appropriate security measures upon collection of your personal data, the transmission of data over the internet (including by email) is never completely secure. We endeavor to protect personal data, but we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to or by us.

Should your status become inactive or should our relationship end, we will continue to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy.

TRANSBORDER

Client information may be transferred cross border for legitimate business purposes, such as for cloud storage and for billing practices. All information transfers will comply with the applicable laws.

MARKETING

When you become a client, you are added to our mailing list. We use this mailing list to send you essential information about our business, our services, developments, news, and event invitations. You can also add yourself to our mailing list on our website.

You may request us to remove you from our mailing list via email at any time, which will result in us no longer sending you marketing communications. 

If you unsubscribe from our mailing list, we may still contact you in other instances, such as providing professional services or collecting outstanding fees. In these instances, the relevant professional will contact you directly, not through the mailing list.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

This web site contains links to other sites. This privacy statement is for the sole use and purpose of Lux Financial Solutions LLC. Please be aware that Lux Financial Solutions LLC is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects your personally identifiable information.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this privacy policy at any time. When we make changes to this privacy policy, we will amend the revision. The new modified or amended privacy policy will apply from that revision date. Therefore, we encourage you to review this privacy policy periodically to be informed about how we protect your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this web site, you can contact: info@luxtaxpro.com

This privacy policy was last updated on January 30, 2024