Privacy Policy

Who we are and what this policy covers

This policy explains how KAS Accounting & Wealth Services, LLC ("KAS", "we") handles personal information collected through kascpas.com and the forms, chat, newsletter, booking and payment links on it.

Information you give us as a client is also governed by your engagement letter, the professional confidentiality rules that apply to CPAs, and Internal Revenue Code section 7216. Nothing in this policy reduces those protections.

Information you give us

• Proposal requests. Name, email, service interest and message; optionally phone, company, entity type, industry, revenue range, how you heard about us, one file of up to 8 MB, and whether you want the newsletter. Please do not include Social Security numbers or other sensitive financial data in website forms.
• Business card contact exchange. Name, email and, if you choose, phone and company, shared only after you tick the consent box.
• The Footnote newsletter. Your email address, through the beehiiv sign-up form or the opt-in on our proposal form.
• Live chat. Messages you send through HubSpot chat.
• Appointments. Booking happens on Google Calendar appointment pages, which collect your name, email, phone and intake answers.
• Payments. Card and bank payments are entered on pages hosted by Stripe; we receive your name, email, invoice number and payment note, not your full card number. For cryptocurrency payments you email us the invoice number and transaction ID.
• Client portal. Documents you exchange with us are handled in Drake Portals, which we link to from this site.

Information collected automatically

• Hosting logs. Our host, Netlify, records technical request data such as IP address, browser type and the page requested.
• Country for privacy defaults. We look up only your country to decide which privacy default applies. The country itself is not stored. Where no banner is needed, the default it selects is saved in kas_consent_v2 until you change it with Privacy choices.
• Analytics. Google Analytics 4 measures page views and site events, such as form submissions, booking and phone link clicks, and page speed. When analytics is off, Google may still receive cookieless signals under Google Consent Mode, which do not set cookies on your device.
• Session replay and heatmaps. Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used, with form fields masked. We do not give Clarity an identifier derived from your email.
• HubSpot. HubSpot tracking records page visits for our CRM and powers live chat. It loads when analytics is allowed or when you open chat.
• Attribution. How you arrived at the site (for example a campaign link or an AI assistant referral) is kept in your browser when analytics is allowed and deleted after 90 days without a visit; it is sent with a proposal request so we know which channels work.
• Bookings. When you book a consultation, we record the booking in Google Analytics from our server under a pseudonymous identifier, not your name or email.
• Newsletter form. The Footnote sign-up form is provided by beehiiv and appears on most pages; beehiiv may set its own cookies.
• Preferences. Your theme and accessibility panel settings are saved in your browser.

Cookies, consent and browser signals

United States and most other locations. Analytics tools are on by default and advertising tools are off. You can change both at any time with the Privacy choices button at the bottom of every page.

European Economic Area, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and unknown locations. Optional analytics and advertising cookies are not set until you choose in the cookie banner. Google may still receive the cookieless signals described above, HubSpot loads if you open live chat, and the newsletter sign-up form appears on most pages.

Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, advertising tools stay off, even if you accept cookies or saved an earlier choice. GPC never turns any tool on, and where consent is required you still choose in the banner.

Do Not Track. The site does not change its behavior in response to Do Not Track signals; we honor Global Privacy Control as described above.

Advertising tools (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, LinkedIn Insight and X) load only if you opt in. If you do, those companies may collect information about your activity over time and across other websites. Microsoft Clarity may also use Microsoft's own cookies (such as MUID) that recognize your browser across Microsoft services and other sites that use them.

How we use information

• To respond to inquiries and proposal requests, schedule meetings, and decide whether we can accept an engagement.
• To invoice and record payments.
• To send The Footnote newsletter if you ask for it. Every issue has an unsubscribe link.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it, and, only if you opt in, to measure our advertising.
• To keep the site secure, prevent spam and fraud, and meet legal and professional obligations.

Tax return information and professional confidentiality

Information you provide so we can prepare a tax return is tax return information under Internal Revenue Code section 7216. We use and disclose it only as section 7216 and its regulations allow, or with your written consent. We never sell it. Without your written consent we use it for marketing only as the section 7216 regulations allow, for example to tell existing clients about our tax return preparation services, and we never disclose it to advertising platforms.

As CPAs we are also bound by professional confidentiality rules. Because of those rules, a licensed CPA firm is not required to send the separate privacy notices that some financial institutions send.

How we share information

We share personal information with service providers that work for us, only as needed for the purposes above:

• Netlify (website hosting, forms and file uploads, server functions)
• HubSpot (CRM, live chat and email)
• Google (Workspace email and storage, Calendar booking, Analytics and its data export, and Google Ads only if you opt in)
• Microsoft (Clarity, and Microsoft Advertising only if you opt in)
• LinkedIn and X (advertising measurement only if you opt in)
• beehiiv (newsletter)
• Stripe and Intuit QuickBooks Online (payments and invoicing)
• Drake Software (client portal)

We may also disclose information when the law or a professional or regulatory body requires it, to protect our rights or the safety of others, or as part of a transfer of the practice, subject to the confidentiality rules above.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising unless you opt in to advertising cookies.

Your choices and requests

• Use Privacy choices at the bottom of any page to turn analytics or advertising tools on or off.
• Turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, or block or delete cookies in your browser settings.
• Unsubscribe from The Footnote with the link in any issue.
• Opt out of personalized ads with each company: Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and X.
• Ask us to access, correct or delete personal information we hold about you by emailing kurtsimmons@kascpas.com. We will verify your request and respond as the law requires. Professional and legal record-keeping duties may require us to keep some client records.

How long we keep information

We keep information only as long as we need it for the purposes above. Your privacy choice is kept in a cookie for 1 year and in your browser's storage until you clear it, and attribution data is deleted after 90 days without a visit. Client records are kept for the periods that professional standards and tax and other laws require. Analytics and other service-provider data are kept according to each provider's retention settings.

Security

We use safeguards designed to protect your information, including encrypted connections and restricted access to our accounts. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. Please do not send Social Security numbers or tax documents through website forms or email; use the client portal once we have engaged.

Children

This website is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

Where information is processed

We serve clients in the United States. We and our service providers process information primarily in the United States; some providers may process it in other countries under their own safeguards.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy, we will post the new version here with a new effective date.

Email kurtsimmons@kascpas.com or call 561-316-7636.