Privacy Policy

Updated 1st August 2024.

Everyone at GoSimpleTax recognise the importance of your privacy. This policy briefly outlines the information GoSimpleTax collect, how we do our utmost to safeguard your information and how we use it.

Please check back periodically as GoSimpleTax may be required to revise this Privacy Policy to comply with any relevant European regulations, in order to implement new technology or to improve your user experience.

This Privacy Policy forms part of, and should be read in conjunction with our Terms and Conditions.

Using GoSimpleTax

GoSimpleTax uses cookies to store and collect information about your usage of the Website in order to help us improve the quality of our services and to enhance your online experience. When you access GoSimpleTax, your computer sends us information such as your IP address, the URL on our Website that you have visited, the date and time of your visit and information on your browser.

Signing up to GoSimpleTax

GoSimpleTax collects personal information when You register on the Website and when you use the service or contact the GoSimpleTax support team. All contact by telephone,  email or by any other means is stored either by GoSimpleTax or by third party service providers for the sole purpose of providing certain services to GoSimpleTax in connection with its Websites. These third party service providers include software to analyse customer usage patterns, customer relationship management software, email marketing software and other communication tools.

Your information will only be used by GoSimpleTax in order to provide you with access to our products, services and information that we believe will interest you. We may contact You from time to time to provide you with such information, either using our own software or third party communication tools. Your information will continue to be held and used by GoSimpleTax to contact you in such a way after you cease using our services but you may unsubscribe from such communications. Your personal details will never be passed on to any other companies or third parties including affiliates (other than the third party service providers described above) and will never be added to any third party mailing lists or databases unless you opt in to do so. By using the service you consent to your personal information being collected, held and used in this way.

HMRC passwords, ID numbers, or other special access features which you provide to us are stored locally and are deleted as soon as the tax return is submitted.

GoSimpleTax may also use information about our users in statistical aggregate form. This is non personal information and simply refers to information such as the number of registrations, traffic patterns and Website user trends.

Through your use of the Service GoSimpleTax may also collect information about someone else from you. If you provide GoSimpleTax with personal information about someone else you must ensure that you are authorised to disclose that information to GoSimpleTax and without GoSimpleTax taking further steps required by applicable data protection or privacy laws. GoSimpleTax may collect, use and disclose such information for the purposes described this Policy.

This means that you must take reasonable steps to ensure the individual concerned is aware of and/or consents to the various matters detailed in this Policy, including the fact that their personal information is being collected, the purposes for which that information is being collected, the intended recipients of that information, the individual’s right to obtain access to that personal information, GoSimpleTax’ identity and how to contact GoSimpleTax.

Once signed up GoSimpleTax and following a successful tax return submission to HMRC, will keep Your personal information for the term of 6 years, so long as you login to the GoSimpleTax application at least once in each 3-year period. If there is a gap of 3 years between each login GoSimpleTax will schedule your data for deletion, giving no less than 14 days’ notice, the deletion notice will be sent via email to the email address used to access GoSimpleTax. If a login is detected within the 14-day notice period then data will be retained for a further 3 years. You can also request GoSimpleTax to delete Your personal information or withdraw your consent by emailing [email protected] and asking that GoSimpleTax manually delete your personal information. We highly recommend that You take a copy of each year’s Tax Return before deleting or requesting deletion

Using GoSimpleTax without signing up (via OpenCalc)

OpenCalc is a version of GoSimpleTax that allows you access without registering. The personal information you enter is only stored whilst your web browser is open and is lost when you close your web browser or move to another website unless you choose to sign up to GoSimpleTax.

Contacting us

If you contact us via email, webchat or by telephone, your details and a history of the communication (which will likely include personal data) will be stored/recorded by us in order for us to deal with enquiries adequately and improve our customer support services. By agreeing to these Terms, You consent to the storage/recording of Your communication in this way.

Subprocessors and Third Party Service Providers

GoSimpleTax uses subprocessors and third party service providers to provide certain services in connection with its Websites. Any personally identifiable information provided by You may be disclosed by GoSimpleTax to such third party service provider for the sole purpose of the provision of those services to GoSimpleTax. By signing up to GoSimpleTax and when providing feedback You consent to the disclosure of any personally identifiable information to such third party service providers and subprocessors. The full list can be here. GoSimpleTax takes no responsibility for the privacy practices or content of these services. GoSimpleTax undertakes to use a commercially reasonable selection process by which it evaluates the security, privacy and confidentiality practices of proposed subprocessors and third party service providers.

The personal information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us, one of our group companies or for one of our suppliers. Such staff maybe engaged in, among other things, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Third Party Integrations

GoSimpleTax allows you to integrate with third party service providers to allow you to deal with your business processes more seamlessly. Whenever you activate one of these integrations from within the Website you are allowing that third party to access your data within the Website for the purposes of them providing their services. The data collection and usage practices of any third party integration provider are not covered by this Privacy Policy. GoSimpleTax assumes no liability and is not responsible for any practices of such third party providers, including their privacy practices or content. Information Others Provide to Us – We may receive information from others (e.g. your bank) that you have authorised that third party to provide to us. This could include the initial information to enable us to create your account (e.g your full name, your email address and your business type) and your bank transaction data.

Links and affiliated websites

GoSimpleTax contains hypertext links to other sites, advertisers and other third parties. By clicking on any of these links, you are leaving our Website. GoSimpleTax has no control over the information collected by any third party after you have left the Website. GoSimpleTax encourages you to read their privacy policies.

The data collection and usage practices of any third party linked to GoSimpleTax are not covered by this Privacy Policy. GoSimpleTax assumes no liability and is not responsible for any practices of such third party web sites, including their privacy practices or content.

Protecting your information

GoSimpleTax uses ANS to host its services, the servers located in the UK. For more information on GoSimpleTax’ security arrangements please see our security policy.
By entering personal information into the service, you consent to personal information being hosted on ANS servers. ANS role is limited to providing hosting to GoSimpleTax. GoSimpleTax retains control of Your personal information and ANS is not permitted to access or use your personal information, except for the limited purpose of storing the information.

Please bear in mind that the internet as a whole is not secure and we cannot give total assurance that your information will be secure at all times. Sending personal information over the internet is at your own risk and you should enter personal information from an environment/infrastructure you know is secure.

Personal Information

Personal information is information you provide to us which personally identifies you including your name, address and e-mail address, National Insurance Number, Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) etc.

Non Personal Information

Non-personal information is collected and recorded about users when they use the website. This information is collected into groups so that it no longer reflects or represents any individual user and is used purely for statistical purposes. This information may include financial information.

Your data and HMRC

When submitting your data to HMRC using our software, the data included in the submission is governed by HMRC’s Privacy Policy.

The HMRC Privacy Policy can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-act-dpa-information-hm-revenue-and-customs-hold-about-you/data-protection-act-dpa-information-hm-revenue-and-customs-hold-about-you

HMRC’s Transaction Monitoring Privacy Notice also applies and should be reviewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transaction-monitoring-privacy-notice/transaction-monitoring-privacy-notice

We don’t store your credit card details

Once your free trial is over, you need to provide payment details to start your subscription or make a one off payment for the chosen tax year. This information is passed directly (one off) or via our subscription provider (subscription) to our payment service provider (Stripe – https://stripe.com/gb) over an encrypted link and is never stored on our system. If a subscription is chosen ongoing billing is performed by passing a token to Stripe that identifies your account. Subscriptions are managed by Zoho Subscriptions (https://www.zoho.com/uk/subscriptions/). Stripe’s privacy policy is available here and Zoho’s privacy policy is available here.

What is an IP address?

Each Internet connection is identified by a unique address which is referred to as an IP address (Internet Protocol address).

An IP address is made up of four numbers, separated by dots, for example: 87.128.56.1. Some ISPs publish the name of the company or individual who uses the connection which allows anyone to see who is using that IP. You can check if your IP address is listed using a who is service.

With the help of a court order and the relevant ISP it is possible to connect an IP with a user.

Promotional Material

If you’ve consented to appear in any promotional material we reserve the right to use your organisation name and logo in any of our marketing material. Marketing on our websites includes testimonials, case studies and publishing your organisation’s logo and contact details.

Trustpilot

Trustpilot is an independent review website that helps us to get feedback from our customers.

We use them to send out invitation emails to customers, giving the opportunity to leave feedback. We use this feedback to improve our service for the benefit of others. When we send out a Trustpilot review invitation, we either send a link to our page on Trustpilot or send Trustpilot the customers First Name, Last Name and Email Address. These details are used by Trustpilot to send you an email asking you to leave a review of the product/service you received. Trustpilot gives us the ability to create images that include your name and review that we can share on our website or social media. If you do not want us to use your review for marketing purposes, then you can contact us at any time by emailing [email protected]. You can also contact us, and we will remove your details from Trustpilot. Alternatively, the quickest way to unsubscribe from Trustpilot is by clicking the link provided at the bottom of each Trustpilot email. Trustpilot’s privacy policy can be read here Trustpilot Privacy Policy.

Identity Verification

If we need to verify your identity we use Stripe Identity (https://stripe.com/gb/identity). The information you give is collected directly by Stripe and is never stored on our system, we only store if the verification is a success/failure. Stripe’s privacy policy is available here.

5 reasons to use GoSimpleTax >