Privacy Policy

TaxGnosis is operated by Adele Goosen, a registered tax practitioner with the South African Institute of Tax Professionals (SAIT), registration number 19802084, and registered with SARS as a tax practitioner under number PR-0006793, trading as TaxGnosis.

We are committed to protecting your personal information and processing it responsibly, lawfully, and transparently in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

By using TaxGnosis, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Policy. Questions or concerns? Contact us:

• Email: support@taxgnosis.co.za
• WhatsApp: 078 302 1405
• Address: 78 Mann Street, Loerie Park, George, 6529, Western Cape, South Africa

The Responsible Party and Information Officer for TaxGnosis is:

• Your name and email address (when subscribing)
• Your WhatsApp or phone number (if you contact us)
• Your subscription tier and plan details
• Payment reference numbers from PayFast (we do not receive or store card details)
• Support queries and correspondence you send to us

• A randomly generated device identifier stored in your device's local storage (to manage subscription access)
• Your general geographic region (country or province — not precise location)
• Technical information: browser type, operating system, screen size
• Pages visited and features used within the application
• Date and time of access

• Your credit card, debit card, or banking details (handled entirely by PayFast)
• Your South African ID number or tax reference number
• The contents of your tax returns or personal financial records
• Precise GPS location data
• Biometric information of any kind

We process your personal information only for the following lawful purposes:

1. To activate and manage your TaxGnosis subscription, verify payment, and grant access to the modules you have purchased.
2. To communicate with you about your subscription — renewal reminders, payment confirmations, and important updates.
3. To provide support services when you contact us with questions about the application.
4. To comply with our legal obligations under POPIA, the ECT Act, and other applicable South African legislation.
5. To protect the security and integrity of the application and to detect and prevent abuse, fraud, or unauthorised access.
6. To improve the application and user experience based on aggregated, anonymised usage data.

We will not use your personal information for any purpose incompatible with the above without your prior consent.

1. Contractual necessity: Processing is required to perform the subscription agreement between you and TaxGnosis.
2. Legal obligation: We are required by law to maintain certain records and comply with POPIA, the ECT Act, and tax legislation.
3. Legitimate interests: We process certain technical and usage data to maintain the security, availability, and performance of the application, and to prevent fraud.
4. Consent: Where we rely on your consent for any specific processing activity, we will obtain this separately and you may withdraw it at any time.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share it only in these limited circumstances:

1. PayFast: When you make a payment, you are redirected to PayFast's secure platform. PayFast sends us a transaction notification confirming the outcome. We receive only your email address and a payment reference — never your card details. PayFast operates under its own privacy policy and PCI-DSS compliance framework.
2. Supabase: We use Supabase, a cloud database provider, to store subscription records (email, plan, status, expiry date). Data is stored on servers within the European Union, which provides adequate data protection under POPIA.
3. Legal requirements: We may disclose personal information where required by law, court order, or regulatory authority.
4. Business transfer: In the event TaxGnosis is sold or restructured, personal information may be transferred to the successor entity, subject to equivalent privacy protections.

We do not use your personal information for direct marketing by third parties.

1. Subscription records are retained for as long as your subscription is active and for 5 years thereafter, to comply with South African recordkeeping requirements.
2. Support correspondence is retained for 3 years from the date of the last communication.
3. Anonymised usage data may be retained indefinitely for product improvement purposes.
4. When retention periods expire, personal information is securely deleted or anonymised.

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including:

• All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS
• Subscription data is stored in Supabase with Row Level Security (RLS) enabled
• Access to subscription data is restricted to server-side functions using a service role key stored as a secure environment variable — never exposed in client-side code
• PayFast handles all payment processing — we never see or store your card details
• Access codes are stored as encrypted environment variables, never in source code

No method of electronic transmission is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security but will notify you without undue delay if a data breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights.

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the following rights:

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@taxgnosis.co.za or WhatsApp 078 302 1405. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, you may contact the Information Regulator of South Africa:

1. TaxGnosis does not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies.
2. The application uses your device's local storage (not traditional cookies) to store a randomly generated user identifier and your subscription session details. This is necessary to maintain access without requiring a login on every visit.
3. You may clear your browser's local storage at any time. This will remove your session data and may require you to re-verify your subscription.
4. If we introduce analytics in future (such as Plausible Analytics, which is privacy-focused and cookie-free), we will update this Policy accordingly.

TaxGnosis is not intended for use by persons under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us at support@taxgnosis.co.za and we will delete that information promptly.

Your subscription data is stored by Supabase on servers located in the European Union. The European Union is considered to have an adequate level of data protection. This transfer is necessary for the performance of your subscription agreement.

We do not transfer your personal information to countries that do not provide adequate protection without implementing appropriate safeguards.

1. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements.
2. Where changes are material, we will notify you by email to your registered address before the changes take effect.
3. The current version of this Policy, including its effective date, is always available at taxgnosis.co.za/privacy.html.
4. Continued use of TaxGnosis after the effective date of any updated Policy constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

For all privacy-related queries, requests, or complaints: