Privacy Policy

Legal Information   |   Last updated: March 30, 2023

Software Spinner ("us", "we", or "our") operates https://www.myexpattaxes.com (the "Site") and https://help.myexpattaxes.com. This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the Site. We use your Personal Information only for providing a service and improving the Site. Our Site is independent of any party, institution, or interest groups. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
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1. Information Collection And Use

While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to your name ("Personal Information").
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2. Personal Data

We may use your Personal Information to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information about the Site. We will not share your data with other third parties, unless where necessary to use our services - so basically, when you file your tax returns through the Site, we have to share your information with the IRS.

For a complete list and more details, please check out https://www.myexpattaxes.com/gdpr
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3. Cookies

Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer's hard drive. Like many sites, we use "cookies" to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, please be aware that you may not be able to use some portions of our Site.

Cookie settings for myexpattaxes.com

To adjust cookies for our HelpCenter help.myexpattaxes.com please visit help.myexpattaxes.com/privacy-policy
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4. Security

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
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5. Changes To This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of its creation (February 23rd, 2018) and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page. We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and we encourage you to check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us or by placing a prominent notice on our website.
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6. Contact Us

You can reach out to us via email, the chat window in the bottom right corner, or through one of our social media sites, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. Please note that if you reach out to us, we will store the data you provide us with to answer your requests. This will typically include only your name and email address (or other means by which to contact you), but depending on your specific inquiry we may have to ask for additional information.

Whatever data we collect through this contact, we will not share it with any third party without your express permission.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at team@myexpattaxes.com.
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7. Log Data

Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Site ("Log Data"). This Log Data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics.
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8. Matomo Analytics

This website uses Matomo Analytics. Matomo is an open source web analytics platform. A web analytics platform is used by a website owner in order to measure, collect, analyse and report visitors data for purposes of understanding and optimizing their website. If you would like to see what Matomo looks like, you can access a demo version at: https://demo.matomo.org.

Matomo is used to analyse the behaviour of the website visitors to identify potential pitfalls; not found pages, search engine indexing issues, which contents are the most appreciated… Once the data is processed (number of visitors reaching a not found pages, viewing only one page…), Matomo is generating reports for website owners to take action, for example changing the layout of the pages, publishing some fresh content… etc.

Matomo is processing the following personal data:

  • Cookies
  • IP address (anonymized)
  • Title of the page being viewed
  • URL of the page being viewed
  • URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page
  • Pages generation time

Processing your personal data such as cookies is helping us identify what is working and what is not on our website. For example, it helps us identify if the way we are communicating is engaging or not and how we can organize the structure of the website better. Our team is benefiting from the processing of your personal data, and they are directly acting on the website. By processing your personal data, you can profit from a website which is getting better and better.

Without the data, we would not be able to provide you the service we are currently offering to you. Your data will be used only to improve the user experience on our website and help you find the information you are looking for.

The personal data received through Matomo are sent to us only. The data is hosted in a data center in France. We are keeping the personal data captured within Matomo for a period of six months.

As Matomo is processing personal data on legitimate interests, you can exercise the following rights:

  • Right of access: you can ask us at any time to access your personal data.
  • Right to erasure: you can ask us at any time to delete all the personal data we are processing about you.
  • Right to object: you can object to the tracking of your personal data by using the following opt-out link.

You can also adjust Matomo tracking  for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

Matomo Analytics is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com, app.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.

If you have any questions, please contact us at team@myexpattaxes.com.
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9. SendInBlue

We use SendInBlue (https://www.sendinblue.com) for our newsletters.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we will need your email address and your explicit permission that you agree to receive our newsletter.

If you want to cancel your subscription, you may do so at any time either through the "Unsubscribe" link in one of our newsletter emails or by sending us an email to team@myexpattaxes.com.

You can adjust SendInBlue tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

SendInBlue is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.
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10. ActiveCampaign

We use ActiveCampaign (https://www.activecampaign.com) for our newsletters.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we will need your email address and your explicit permission that you agree to receive our newsletter.

If you want to cancel your subscription, you may do so at any time either through the "Unsubscribe" link in one of our newsletter emails or by sending us an email to team@myexpattaxes.com.

ActiveCampaign's Site Tracking connects the marketing and sales process to our website activity by tracking webpage visits made by contacts in "real-time." In addition, Site Tracking also provides deeper visitor details when using Conversations.

You can adjust ActiveCampaign tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

ActiveCampaign is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.

We also use another product from the same company, Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com) for notifications sent from our software.
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11. Behavioral Remarketing

We use the “visitor action pixels” from Facebook Inc (1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA, or, if you are based in the EU, Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (“Facebook”)) on our website. This allows user behavior to be tracked after they have been redirected to the provider’s website by clicking on a Facebook ad. This enables us to measure the effectiveness of Facebook ads for statistical and market research purposes. The data collected in this way is anonymous to us, i.e. we do not see the personal data of individual users. However, this data is stored and processed by Facebook, which is why we are informing you, based on our knowledge of the situation. Facebook may link this information to your Facebook account and also use it for its own promotional purposes, in accordance with Facebook’s Data Usage Policy. You can allow Facebook and its partners to place ads on and off Facebook. A cookie may also be stored on your computer for these purposes. The legal basis for the use of this service is Art. 6 paragraph 1 sentence 1 letter f GDPR. You can object to the collection of your data by Facebook pixel, or to the use of your data for the purpose of displaying Facebook ads by contacting the following address: Facebook’s Ad Preferences. Facebook is certified under the Privacy Shield Agreement and thus guarantees compliance with European data protection legislation (Link Privacy Shield Agreement).

You can adjust Facebook tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

Facebook is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com, app.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.
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12. Google Tag Manager

This website uses Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager is a solution operated by Google LLC. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (“Google”) that allows marketed website tags to be managed using an interface. The Tag Manager tool itself (which implements the tags) is a cookie-less domain and does not register personal data. The tool causes other tags to be activated which may, for their part, register data under certain circumstances. Google Tag Manager does not access this information. If recording has been deactivated on domain or cookie level, this setting will remain in place for all tracking tags implemented with Google Tag Manager.

Google Tag Manager is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.

You can adjust Google Tag Manager tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:


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13. Facebook Visitor Action Pixels

We use the “visitor action pixels” from Facebook Inc (1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA, or, if you are based in the EU, Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (“Facebook”)) on our website. This allows user behavior to be tracked after they have been redirected to the provider’s website by clicking on a Facebook ad. This enables us to measure the effectiveness of Facebook ads for statistical and market research purposes. The data collected in this way is anonymous to us, i.e. we do not see the personal data of individual users. However, this data is stored and processed by Facebook, which is why we are informing you, based on our knowledge of the situation. Facebook may link this information to your Facebook account and also use it for its own promotional purposes, in accordance with Facebook’s Data Usage Policy (https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/). You can allow Facebook and its partners to place ads on and off Facebook. A cookie may also be stored on your computer for these purposes. The legal basis for the use of this service is Art. 6 paragraph 1 sentence 1 letter f GDPR. You can object to the collection of your data by Facebook pixel, or to the use of your data for the purpose of displaying Facebook ads by contacting the following address: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads. Facebook is certified under the Privacy Shield Agreement and thus guarantees compliance with European data protection legislation (Link Privacy Shield Agreement: https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC&status=Active).

You can adjust Facebook Visitor Action Pixels tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:


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14. Universal Event Tracking

MyExpatTaxes uses Universal Event Tracking, a solution made by Microsoft (One Microsoft Way Redmond, Washington, U.S.) Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a mechanism for advertisers to report user activity on their websites to Microsoft Advertising by installing one site-wide tag. UET is a prerequisite for advertisers to track conversions and/or do remarketing.

The tag reports user activity on the advertiser website to Microsoft Advertising. Learn more: https://help.ads.microsoft.com/#apex/ads/en/53056/2

UET collects the following data and Bing Ads retains it for 180 days. UET will also collect the IP address and the Microsoft cookie (with an expiration date of 13 months). This cookie contains a GUID assigned to the user’s browser, and/or an ID assigned to a user as long as it is authenticated through their Microsoft account. In general, the cookie in the relevant domain and IP address are always passed with every HTTP request and not just via UET. Bing Ads doesn't resell this data to third parties or share it with other advertisers.

You can adjust Microsoft Universal Event Tracking tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

Universal Event Tracking is integrated only on www.myexpattaxes.com, app.myexpattaxes.com - not integrated on help.myexpattaxes.com.
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15. Freshdesk

We use the customer service system Freshdesk (hereinafter referred to as “Freshdesk”), a service of Freshworks Inc. (1250 Bayhill Drive, Suite 315, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA; hereinafter referred to as “Freshworks”), to accept and manage contact requests. When you contact us (via contact form or email), your details will be stored in Freshdesk for processing the contact request.

Freshworks complies with the data protection regulations of the „US privacy shield“ and is registered with the US Department of Commerce’s Privacy Shield program. In addition, we have a contract with Freshworks for the use of Freshdesk. By this contract Freshworks assures that they process the data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantee the rights of the person or user concerned.

The corresponding data processing takes place on the basis of GDPR Section 6 (1) S. 1 lit. b and may be necessary for the execution of the contract with you or pre-contractual measures. In addition, data processing is carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests pursuant to GDPR Section 6 (1) S. 1 lit. f. Our legitimate economic interest lies in optimising the management of contact enquiries and improving customer service in order to provide our services.

More information about Freshdesk and data protection at Freshworks can be found here.
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16. Pinterest

Our website uses the "Pinterest Tag" (code segment) from Pinterest Europe Ltd. Palmerston House, 2nd Floor Fenian Street Dublin 2, Ireland / 635 High Street, Palo Alto, California, USA ("Pinterest").

By applying the Pinterest tag, Pinterest is able to identify visitors to our website as a target audience for displaying advertisements ("Pinterest ads"). Consequently, we use the Pinterest tag to ensure that our targeted Pinterest ads are only displayed to Pinterest users who have demonstrated an interest in our services or who meet specific criteria (such as an interest in specific topics or products based on the websites visited) that we indicate to Pinterest (known as "ActAlike Audiences"). By utilizing the Pinterest tag, we also strive to ensure that our Pinterest advertisements are relevant and not intrusive. In addition, we can use the Pinterest tag to track the performance of Pinterest advertisements for statistical and marketing purposes by determining whether users were redirected to our website after clicking on a Pinterest advertisement (known as "Conversion").

The Pinterest tag will only be enabled if you have provided your consent under cookie settings. You can cancel or modify your decision with future effect at any time. (see Section 3).

All collected information remains anonymous and does not permit us to determine the identity of the user. Data is collected regarding device information (e.g., type, brand), the operating system used, the IP address of the device used, the time of access, the type and content of the campaign, the response to the respective campaign (e.g., completed purchase, sign up), and unique device identifiers. This allows us to identify your device on our website.

This information may be stored and processed by Pinterest when you log in to your Pinterest account after visiting our website or if you visit our website while logged in. This information may be associated with your Pinterest account and used for marketing purposes by Pinterest. The Pinterest privacy policy contains additional information: policy.pinterest.com/de/privacy-policy. You can withdraw your consent to this specific data processing any time by deactivating the relevant settings in your Pinterest account under "Personalization" or by adjusting your cookie settings.

You can adjust Pinterest tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

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17. LinkedIn Insight Tag

The LinkedIn Insight Tag enables the collection of data regarding members’ visits to your website, including the URL, referrer, IP address, device and browser characteristics (User Agent), and timestamp. The IP addresses are truncated or (when used for reaching members across devices) hashed, and members’ direct identifiers are removed within seven days in order to make the data pseudonymous. This remaining pseudonymized data is then deleted within 180 days.

You can adjust LinkedIn Insight tracking for www.myexpattaxes.com here:

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18. Friendly Captcha

We use Friendly Captcha to protect our contact forms from spam and abuse, a service of Friendly Captcha GmbH, Am Anger 3-5, 82237 Woerthsee, Germany.

Using proof-of-work, this solution employs a fundamentally new approach to spam prevention and therefore does not depend on tracking users and exploiting personal data.

When you visit a page that includes the Friendly Captcha widget and send a puzzle request, we collect the following log data:

  • The request headers User-Agent, Origin and Referer.
  • The puzzle itself, which contains information about the account and site key it is related to.
  • The version of the widget.
  • A timestamp.
  • We store an anonymized counter per IP address for dynamic puzzle difficulty on the edge network to detect malicious users and minimize blocking legitimate users. This data is stored entirely separately from the rest of the data and cannot be correlated to specific websites or anything else. We anonymize IP addresses using a one-way hash of certain values so they cannot be personally identified.

We do NOT ask for other information or personal information, such as your name, email, and online profiles.

More information about 'Friendly Captcha'.
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19. Social Sharing Buttons

We have integrated 'share buttons' on our blog posts, which allow users to share our articles on social media platforms. For that purpose, we use a 'Shariff' plugin that follows the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR – Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Our 'Share Buttons' only establish direct contact with the social network when a button has been actively clicked. No data is transferred to social media platforms by visiting our blog posts.

More information about 'Shariff'.
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20. Statutory regulations and data processing purpose

By using our Site and our services, you have entered your data willingly and we process your data with the purpose of:

  • Determining service eligibility - are both parties able to enter a contract
  • Contract fulfillment - allowing us to fulfill the service you signed up for
  • Answering your inqueries
  • Sending you additional information and newsletters (see chapter 10).

You may rescind your agreement to all or some of the items above at any point.

Note that withdrawing your consent to all or some of these items may hinder our ability to provide you our services to the point where are unable to fulfill them.

You may also request that we delete your data from our system. Please be aware, once your data has been deleted, we will no longer be able to fulfill our services. To rescind your agreement, please send an email to team@myexpattaxes.com.
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21. Forwarding your data to third parties

We forward your tax-relevant data to the IRS when you e-file your returns through us, as part of the contractual necessity to deliver our service to you. Please check https://www.myexpattaxes.com/gdpr for details.

Beyond that, we will only forward your data to legal authorities as dictated by law or if necessary to press legal claims of Software Spinner, especially if necessary to press claims regarding contractual obligations.
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22. Legal information

Regarding all data relating to you, you have the right to get a report on it, correct it, have it deleted or amended. You may rescind your agreement to have your data transferred to any third party as well.

According to US law, we have to retain the PDFs of your tax returns filed through us for a period of no shorter than 10 years even if your account has been deleted. All reference to you and your data will be removed, but the filled-out PDF has to be retained.

If you believe that processing your data by us is violating data protection laws or that your data protection claims have been violated in any kind, you may reach out to the appropriate authority. In Austria, this would be the "Datenschutzbehörde".
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23. Details regarding Article 13 of GDPR

Please follow this link: https://www.myexpattaxes.com/gdpr