Privacy Notice

Effective September 2026 · version 2026-09

Copper & Vine Accounting is trusted with some of the most sensitive information you have. This notice says plainly what we collect, what we do with it, who ever sees it, and how we look after it.

What we collect

Information you give us

Your name, address, phone number and email; Social Security or employer identification numbers; income, expense and banking details; and the documents you upload.

Information from others

Forms and statements sent to us on your behalf, such as those from employers, banks and government agencies.

Information we create

The returns, books and reports we prepare for you, and a record of your activity in this portal.

What we use it for

• Preparing and filing your returns, and doing the accounting work you have engaged us for.
• Communicating with you about that work.
• Billing you, and taking payment.
• Meeting our own legal and professional obligations, including the records we are required to keep.

Who else sees it

Only these, and only for these reasons:

• Tax authorities, when we file on your behalf and you have authorised it.
• Service providers who help us run the practice — for example the company that hosts this portal, or the service that handles card payments — under contracts that bind them to protect your information and to use it only for that work.
• Anyone else you tell us in writing to share it with.
• Anyone we are compelled to share it with by law, such as under a subpoena or court order.

How we protect it

This portal exists so that your documents and details are not sitting in email attachments. What that means in practice:

• Everything is encrypted — in transit to and from this site, and on the disks it is stored on, including every backup.
• Your most sensitive fields get a second layer. Social Security and employer identification numbers are separately encrypted, so they stay unreadable even to someone who reached the database.
• Signing in takes more than a password. Every account uses an authenticator app as a second step, and a PIN guards the parts of the portal that show protected information.
• Documents are private until we release them. A file in your portal is not visible to anyone else, and staff release documents to you deliberately rather than by default.
• We keep a record of who looked at what. Every sign-in, download and change is logged, and those logs are kept.
• Nobody has standing access. Access to the systems holding your information is granted for a task and recorded, including for the people who build and maintain this portal.

How long we keep it

We keep your records for as long as we are working together, and after that for as long as the tax rules and our professional obligations require — generally at least seven years for returns and the records behind them. Nothing is deleted casually; we archive rather than destroy, and destruction happens on a schedule rather than on a whim.

Your choices

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and tell us who we may or may not share it with. If you ever want your information shared with a third party — a lender, a lawyer, another accountant — we will ask you to put that in writing first, because the law that governs tax preparers requires your consent before we do.

If something goes wrong

If we ever have reason to believe your information has been exposed, we will tell you, and we will tell the authorities we are required to tell, promptly. We have a written plan for that, which we test rather than merely file.

Asking us about any of this

Write to us at support@copperandvineaccounting.com and a person will answer you.