How we handle personal and financial information

Who we are

PizzelloCPA, PLLC is a certified public accounting firm registered with the North Carolina State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners as firm no. 35339. Andrew Pizzello, CPA is licensed in North Carolina, certificate no. 45651. You can reach us at hello@pizzellocpa.com.

What we collect

This website collects nothing on its own. It runs no analytics, sets no tracking cookies, and loads no advertising or social media scripts.

One exception is worth stating plainly: the contact page embeds a booking calendar provided by TidyCal. Opening that page connects your browser to TidyCal before you click anything, and they may set their own cookies. Every other page on this site loads only from this site. Links to an email address hand you off to your own mail program and tell us nothing until you write.

We collect information when you give it to us:

• When you contact us. Your name, email address, phone number and whatever you choose to tell us.
• When you book a consultation. Your name, email address and your answers to the booking questions. Because the calendar is TidyCal’s, that information is held by TidyCal as well as by us. Do not put a Social Security number, an EIN or bank details into a booking form; we collect those in the client portal, where they are encrypted.
• When you complete a tax organizer. The answers you enter, which include income, expense and household information needed to prepare a return.
• When you use the client portal. Documents you upload, messages you send, and a record of when you signed in.

Signing in to the portal sets one cookie. It keeps you signed in and does nothing else. It is not used to track you and it is not shared.

Why we hold it

To prepare and file your returns, to answer your questions, to meet our own recordkeeping obligations as a CPA firm, and to contact you about your work. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

Who else sees it

Only the people and services needed to do the work:

• The taxing authorities, when we file on your behalf and with your authorization.
• Software and infrastructure providers that store or transmit data for us, under contract, including our document storage and email providers.
• Anyone you direct us to share with, in writing.
• Where the law requires it, such as a valid subpoena or court order.

We do not give your information to another business for its own marketing.

How it is protected

Documents you send through the portal are encrypted with AES-256 before they are stored, and are held in storage controlled by this firm. Information travels over TLS. Access by our own staff requires both an emailed sign-in link and a second factor from a separate device. Access is logged.

No system is perfect, and we will not tell you otherwise. If information we hold is ever compromised in a way that puts you at risk, we will tell you.

How long we keep it

Tax records are retained for the periods required by professional standards and by the taxing authorities, which is generally at least seven years. Portal messages and uploads are retained alongside the engagement they belong to. You can ask us what we hold about you and we will tell you.

Your choices

You can ask us to correct information that is wrong, ask for a copy of what we hold, or ask us to delete information we are not required to keep. Write to hello@pizzellocpa.com. Some records we are obliged to retain even after an engagement ends, and we will say so plainly if that applies.

Depending on where you live you may have additional rights under state privacy law. Ask and we will honor them.

A note for tax clients

As a firm that prepares tax returns, we are also subject to federal financial privacy rules. Clients receive a separate privacy notice describing those obligations. That notice governs the tax engagement; this page describes the website and the portal.

Children

This site is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. We do handle information about dependants when it is part of a family return, provided by the adult engaging us.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant we will tell clients directly rather than relying on you to notice.

Contact

PizzelloCPA, PLLC
1807 Bradford Drive, #147
Greenville, NC 27858
hello@pizzellocpa.com

The address above is a mailing address and is not open to the public.