Privacy Policy - How TaxGainsCalc Protects Your Data

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains what information TaxGainsCalc ("we", "us", this "Site") collects when you visit taxgainscalc.com, what we do with it, and the choices you have. We built this site so that people can check their capital gains tax without handing over personal information, and the policy below reflects that design choice rather than a legal minimum.

The short version: our calculators never send your numbers anywhere, we do not ask you to create an account, we do not sell personal information, and the data that does exist (analytics and advertising cookies) comes from standard third-party tools described in plain language below. By using the Site you agree to this policy. If you disagree with it, the honest option is to stop using the Site — though you can still use the calculators offline once a page has loaded.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Voluntarily

The Site works fully without any personal information from you. There is no registration, no login, no newsletter form that requires your name, and no checkout. The only personal data we ever receive is what you choose to send us yourself, which is limited to email: if you write to us with a correction, a question, or a business inquiry, we receive your email address and whatever you include in the message. We use it only to reply, and we keep the correspondence on file so follow-ups and corrections stay in context.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

Like nearly every website, we collect limited technical data automatically when you visit. This includes your IP address (truncated where the tool supports it), browser type and version, device type, referring page, pages you viewed, and the date and time of your visit. We use Google Analytics 4 for aggregate traffic measurement — how many people read a guide, from which country, and for how long. This data helps us decide which topics need better coverage and which pages load too slowly.

Our server keeps minimal logs, retained for no more than 30 days, for security and troubleshooting. These logs are not combined with advertising profiles, and we do not attempt to identify individuals from them.

2.3 Information We Never Collect

We never collect your Social Security number, tax returns, financial account details, or any document you would use to file. We have no database of user tax profiles and no reason to build one. The inputs you type into any calculator — income, cost basis, holding period, filing status — are processed in your own browser and are never transmitted to our servers, stored in a database, or shared with anyone. This is verifiable: open your browser's developer tools, watch the network tab, and run a calculation. No request carries your numbers.

3. How We Use Information

The limited data we collect serves four purposes only. First, operating the Site: delivering pages, maintaining security, and diagnosing errors. Second, measuring audiences in aggregate so we know which guides to improve or write next. Third, earning the revenue that keeps the Site free through advertising, described in Section 5. Fourth, answering the email you send us.

We do not use your information for automated decisions with legal effect, we do not build advertising profiles ourselves, and we do not combine analytics data with the calculator inputs (which we never receive in the first place). We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information with data brokers, and we never will without asking first and honoring your opt-out.

4. What Happens to Calculator Inputs

Every calculator on this Site is client-side software. When you enter a sale price, a basis, or a state, the computation happens in JavaScript running on your device, and the result appears on your screen. There is no round trip to our servers. If you close the tab, the numbers are gone — they are not saved to our storage, and they are not recoverable by us because they were never sent.

The practical benefit is privacy by architecture: you can check whether a crypto sale triggers the NIIT or whether your home sale fits the Section 121 exclusion without anyone, including us, ever knowing you checked. You can also test the math offline once the page has loaded, since nothing needs to call home.

5. Cookies & Third-Party Advertising

Cookies are small text files a website or its partners store in your browser. We use them for two jobs: remembering your interface preferences (for example, calculator settings like filing status) and enabling the advertising that funds the Site. You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings at any time; the calculators will keep working, though some convenience features may reset.

Third-party vendors, including Google, serve ads on this Site and use cookies to do it. In particular:

• Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies — including the DoubleClick DART cookie — to serve ads based on your visits to this Site and other sites on the internet.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our Site and/or other sites on the internet.
• Other advertising networks we may work with may use similar cookies or device identifiers for frequency capping, fraud prevention, and measurement.

You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, www.aboutads.info, or the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page. Opting out does not mean you see no ads; it means the ads you see are not tailored to your browsing history.

6. Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate site usage — page views, session duration, approximate geography, and device types. GA4 is configured without advertising features tied to personally identifiable data, and IP addresses are anonymized where the platform supports it. This tells us that a guide is confusing or that a calculator page is slow; it does not tell us who you are.

If you prefer to avoid Google Analytics entirely, the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on prevents your browser from sending data to Google Analytics on any site you visit.

7. Children's Privacy

The Site is intended for adults dealing with investment and tax questions. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, we do not create accounts at all, and our content is not directed at children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information through the contact email, tell us and we will delete it promptly.

8. Your Rights (CCPA, GDPR)

8.1 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, the CCPA gives you specific rights: the right to know what personal information is collected, the right to request deletion of personal information, the right to correct inaccurate information, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We want to be direct about our position: we do not sell personal information for money, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising on our own initiative. Advertising cookies placed by our third-party vendors are described in Section 5, and the opt-out links there are the fastest way to stop personalized ads.

You may exercise your CCPA rights by emailing taxgainscalc@gmail.com. Because the volume of personal data we hold is tiny — essentially just correspondence you sent us — requests are typically fulfilled within a few business days, well inside the statutory 45-day window. We do not discriminate against anyone for exercising these rights; there is nothing to discriminate with.

8.2 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland, you have rights under the GDPR: access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and the right to object to processing. Our legal bases are straightforward. Legitimate interest covers security logs and aggregate analytics; consent covers advertising cookies, which you can withdraw through the opt-out links in Section 5 or your browser; and performance of a service covers replying to the email you send us.

To exercise any GDPR right, email taxgainscalc@gmail.com and we will verify and respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority, though we would appreciate the chance to fix the problem first.

9. Data Retention

We keep data only as long as it serves the purpose it was collected for. Server security logs are retained for no more than 30 days and then deleted. Aggregated analytics data may be retained by Google Analytics for up to 14 months under its standard settings. Email correspondence is kept for as long as it remains useful for answering follow-ups and documenting corrections, and you can ask us to delete yours at any time.

Calculator inputs are retained for zero seconds, because we never receive them.

10. Data Security

The Site is served entirely over HTTPS, which encrypts traffic between your browser and our servers. Access to our origin server is restricted, patched when vulnerabilities are disclosed, and monitored for unusual activity. Because we hold almost no personal data, the realistic worst case from a breach is analytics metadata and advertising cookies — not your tax information, because that never reached us.

No website can promise perfect security, and we do not promise it either. What we can promise is that the design minimizes what there is to steal, which is the most reliable security control that exists.

11. Changes to This Policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page with an updated date. Material changes — for example, adding a new analytics tool or a new advertising partner — will be described in plain language at the top of the page so a returning visitor can see what changed without diffing paragraphs. Past versions are kept on file and available on request.

12. Contact Us

Questions about this policy, data requests, or opt-out trouble can go to taxgainscalc@gmail.com. A human — the founder — reads and answers every message, usually within one to two business days. You can also reach us through our Contact page for anything that is not privacy-specific.