Company · Trust & Security Center

Trust & Security Center

How Niptei Tax handles the most sensitive information in your financial life — stated plainly, with the production program labelled where the beta build ends and the full program begins.

Education only — not personal tax advice. Personal questions route to a credentialed pro.

Figures verified against IRS sources · Tax-year tables 2016–2026 · Re-verified each season by the Update Engine · Last review: November 7, 2026

By design: there is nowhere to type a full Social Security number

The platform stores no full SSN — anywhere. That is not a policy toggle; it is architecture. The data model Niptei Tax is built on has no field for a full Social Security number, so no screen can ask for one, no form can carry one, and no breach can leak what was never collected. The Packet Builder asks for name, address, year, and your figures — and says so on its face.

Your profile PIN is stored only as a one-way SHA-256 hash — we could not read it back if we wanted to.
Your IRS IP PIN is never requested and never stored. The IRS Account Concierge teaches you to keep it between you and the IRS — if anyone claiming to be us asks for it, that is a scam; run it through the Scam Shield.
Your records live in your Tax Passport file. Signed out, they stay in your own browser's store, on your own device — nothing is uploaded. Signed in to an account, your records sync to the platform's private database so your file follows you between devices — under row-level security rules the database itself enforces: an account can only ever read its own rows.

Live now, stated precisely: account sync runs to a private Supabase database with per-user row rules; traffic moves over TLS and database storage is encrypted at rest. Still production program (labelled, not live yet): Tax Passport file uploads into the private storage bucket, and per-record envelope encryption (AES-256-GCM with per-record keys is the platform's adopted standard) — under the Written Information Security Plan below.

Consent before use — IRC §7216

Federal law (§7216) bars a tax preparer from using or disclosing your return information for anything beyond preparing your return without your signed, specific consent. Niptei Tax is built on that rule, not around it: engagement paperwork carries a separately signed §7216 consent clause, your data is used for the work you engaged, and your records export with you on demand — never held hostage, never quietly repurposed for marketing.

The full contract stack — engagement agreement, DIY accuracy attestation, and the responsibility matrix — is public on the Pros & Trust page, watermarked until counsel review, because honest paper beats impressive paper.

Data practices, in one screen

Encryption in transit: every page and record moves over HTTPS/TLS — no exceptions, no plain-HTTP fallback.
Minimum collection: if a tool does not need a fact, it does not ask for it. The Estimator needs six numbers; it asks for six numbers.
Rules engine, not a black box: calculations come from versioned, IRS-sourced tax-year tables — never from a model's guess. AI, where it appears, explains; it never calculates.
Your copies, always: everything prepared for you is yours to download and keep. A platform that keeps your copies hostage owns you; this one declines to.
Corrections in public: when we get a figure wrong, the fix is published in the corrections log on the News page — the same standard the accuracy stamp on this page is held to.

The never list

What we never do

Never sell your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to anyone. There is no such product.
Never take your refund into our accounts. A refund moves from the IRS to your account. Routing it through a preparer is barred (Circular 230 §10.31); a Refund Transfer, if it ever exists here, runs only through a licensed settlement bank — no bank partner, no such product.
Never charge a percentage of a refund. Fees are fixed and shown before work starts (§10.27). A bigger refund never means a bigger fee.
Never ask for your full SSN or your IP PIN. See above — the fields do not exist.
Never use or disclose return information without signed §7216 consent.
Never claim IRS endorsement. Niptei Tax is an independent company. The IRS does not endorse preparers, and any platform implying otherwise is telling you something about itself.
Never file, transmit, or sign anything in your name without your signed authorization (Form 8879 when a pro e-files for you — see How E-Filing Works).

The Written Information Security Plan (WISP)

Our Written Information Security Plan follows IRS Publication 4557 and is reviewed with counsel before paid services launch. Publication 4557 is the IRS's own safeguarding guide for tax businesses — risk assessment, access control, encryption, training, and an incident-response plan. The WISP, counsel review, and E&O / cyber insurance (bound before the first paying client) are standing gates on this platform: payments do not open until they close.

Spotted something that looks wrong — a page asking for data it should not, a message claiming to be us? Report it at the Support Desk and choose the security topic. A deadline is never a support ticket — but a security concern is always urgent to us.