Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 21, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how Material Participation, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”), an Alabama limited liability company, collects, uses, and protects information when you use File3520 (“the Product”).

1. Information We Collect

Information you provide

• Account information. When you create an account, our authentication provider (Clerk) collects your email address, name, and login credentials. We do not store your password; authentication is handled entirely by Clerk.
• Filing data. When you use the Product, you enter financial and tax-related information (trust details, contribution amounts, distribution figures, etc.). This data is stored in our database so you can save, resume, and regenerate filings.
• Your final forms. When you mark a return final, we keep a copy of the forms we produce for it, so that Download again gives you back exactly what you filed, even after our calculations change. The copy is encrypted, and it contains no Social Security number, ITIN or date of birth: each is replaced with random digits before anything is stored, and you enter the real number again when you download.
• Preparer information. Professional-plan users may enter paid preparer credentials (name, PTIN, firm name, firm EIN, firm address, phone number). This is stored so it can be stamped on generated forms.
• Trustee profiles. Professional-plan users may save a trustee’s details, and those of a trust’s U.S. agent (name, address, and an entity’s EIN), to fill them in on each trust’s Form 3520-A. A person’s Social Security number or ITIN is never saved in a profile; it is asked for when you download.
• Trust history. For throwback tax calculations, the Product stores a trust’s undistributed-net-income (UNI) ledger: tax period dates, income amounts, and tax amounts. Accurate throwback calculations under IRC section 666 require the complete history of a trust’s undistributed income, so this ledger is kept for as long as we keep the returns it belongs to. Section 6 sets out how long that is and how to export the history before it is deleted.
• Plan histories. For a foreign retirement or savings plan, whether an employer’s plan or an account only you pay into (such as a Canadian TFSA or FHSA, an Australian self-managed super fund, or a UK personal pension), you may keep a plan history: the dates and amounts of the contributions, balances, fees, taxes and payouts on your plan’s statements, the plan’s country, currency and settings, and the investment income figures you enter for it. If you claim a tax treaty position for a year, it also holds that position and your answers to the questions it asks: an age band (such as 50 to 59) and yes or no answers. It is kept for one taxpayer on your account, and that taxpayer’s name and the plan’s name are encrypted with it. It holds no notes or other free text and no identifying numbers. From it the Product works out when you came to own part of the plan, the figures for Forms 3520 and 3520-A, and your basis for later payouts. When you mark a return that uses it final, we keep the plan history’s figures for that return, so we can tell you if the plan history changes afterwards. Section 6 sets out how long a plan history is kept and how to download it.
• Entity identifiers. Employer identification numbers of entities named on a return (a foreign trust, a corporate, partnership, trust or estate filer, an entity acting as U.S. agent, and a preparer’s firm) are saved with the return so they can be printed on the form and carried forward.

Information we do NOT collect or store

• Social Security Numbers and ITINs of individuals. These are entered only at the moment a PDF is generated, are injected directly into the PDF in memory, and are never stored, in full or in part (not even the last four digits), logged, or transmitted to any third party.
• Dates of birth. Same as above: entered at generation time, used transiently, never stored.
• Payment card numbers. Payment is processed entirely by Stripe. We do not receive, see, or store your card number or bank account details.

Information collected automatically

• Server logs. Cloudflare, our hosting provider, may collect standard server logs (IP address, request timestamps, browser type).
• Security audit log. We keep a security audit log of account activity (your user ID, the action taken such as saving, opening, generating or deleting a return, the record affected, the IP address, and the time). It never contains the figures you enter. Audit entries are kept for 365 days and are used only to detect abuse and unauthorized access.
• Authentication events. Clerk logs authentication events (sign-in, sign-out) as part of its service.
• Marketing-page analytics. We use Google Analytics (GA4) on public marketing and educational pages only (the home page, pricing, country guides, glossary, similar informational pages, and the confirmation page shown after you subscribe). We do not send Google the name of the plan you chose, its price, or any other detail of your subscription: only that a subscription occurred. GA4 sets first-party cookies (_ga and _ga_*) on those pages to distinguish new visitors from returning visitors and to measure session duration. These cookies are not set on any page that handles tax return data. GA4 is completely disabled on all pages where you enter, view, or interact with tax return data, including the filing interview, your account, and generated forms. The GA4 disable flag is set before any data collection occurs on those pages.

Information we do NOT collect automatically

• We do not use tracking pixels, session replay tools, or advertising scripts on any page.
• We do not use analytics of any kind on pages that handle tax return information.
• We do not serve advertisements.
• The only cookies set on this site are by Clerk for authentication session management and by Google Analytics on marketing pages as described above. No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies are used.

2. How We Use Information

We use the information described above to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain the Product.
• Save your filing data so you can resume work across sessions.
• Generate completed PDF tax forms when you request them.
• Keep a copy of the forms you mark final, so you can download them again exactly as filed.
• Enforce license limits (e.g., per-taxpayer caps on the Single license).
• Detect whether your current data differs from a previously generated filing (the amendment signal).
• Respond to support requests.

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes.

3. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate the Product:

These providers process data under their own privacy policies. We have no third-party services beyond those listed above.

4. Data Storage and Security

• Filing data and trust ledger history are stored in Cloudflare D1 (a SQLite-based database running on Cloudflare’s global network).
• Copies of the forms you mark final are stored in Cloudflare R2, each encrypted before it is written.
• Data is encrypted in transit (TLS/HTTPS enforced via HSTS).
• Access to the database is scoped per user; you can only read and write your own data.
• SSNs, ITINs, and dates of birth are never written to the database or to file storage. They exist only in server memory for the duration of a single PDF generation request.

5. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Notice

As a provider of tax preparation software, Material Participation, LLC is a “financial institution” under the FTC’s Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314). This section serves as our privacy notice under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Categories of nonpublic personal information we collect

• Information you provide directly: filing data (trust details, contribution and distribution amounts, foreign gift amounts), preparer credentials (name, PTIN, firm details), trustee profiles (a trustee’s and a U.S. agent’s name, address and EIN), plan histories (a retirement or savings plan’s contributions, balances, fees, taxes and payouts, and any tax treaty position you claim for a year with your answers to it, including an age band), and account information (email, name).
• Information from your transactions with us: records of generated forms, filed-figure snapshots, and copies of the forms you marked final.

Sharing practices

We do not disclose nonpublic personal information to nonaffiliated third parties, except as required to operate the Product (see Section 3 above) or as required by law. We do not sell or share your information for marketing purposes.

Opt-out rights

Because we do not share nonpublic personal information with nonaffiliated third parties for purposes other than servicing your account, there is no sharing for you to opt out of. If our practices change, we will provide notice and an opt-out mechanism before any such sharing begins.

Information security program

We maintain a written information security program that includes administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect nonpublic personal information. These safeguards include:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS/HTTPS enforced via HSTS) and at rest (Cloudflare D1 and R2 encrypted storage).
• Per-user data scoping: you can only access your own filing data.
• SSNs, ITINs, and dates of birth are never written to persistent storage.
• Analytics disabled on all pages that handle tax return data (see Section 1).
• Multi-factor authentication available for all accounts via Clerk.
• No application-level logging of user-entered data; no error trackers that capture form contents.
• Security audit log of account activity, retained 365 days.

6. Data Retention

Nothing is deleted while your subscription is active. Your returns, trust ledgers, plan histories, preparer profiles and trustee profiles stay for as long as you keep a paid plan, however many years that is. You can delete any of them yourself at any time.

If your subscription ends, we keep everything for a further period so that you can come back to it, and so that a record exists of what was prepared. We keep a return for at least three years from the later of the date it was prepared and its due date, measured from whichever of your returns is most recent. After that period passes, the data below is permanently deleted. We email you at 90, 30 and 7 days beforehand, and again once it has happened.

• Filing data (returns): Kept while your subscription is active, or until you delete a return. After a subscription ends, kept for the period described above, then deleted.
• Trust UNI ledger history: Same period. Accurate throwback calculations under IRC section 666 require the complete history of a trust’s undistributed net income, so we keep this for as long as we keep the returns it belongs to, but it is deleted with them. If you may file for the same trust again, export this history before the deletion date.
• Plan histories: Same period. A plan history holds your basis, the record of money already taxed to you, which you may need when you take money from the plan, possibly many years from now. The deletion warnings name it, and until it is deleted you can open it and download it (a PDF and a spreadsheet of every entry) without a subscription. The plan history figures kept with a return you marked final are deleted with that return.
• Filed-figure snapshots: Same period. These are the record of what each generated form contained.
• Copies of final forms: Same period as the return they belong to. Deleted straight away when you delete the return, or when you use Correct an error to reopen it. They are not in the nightly database backup.
• Preparer profiles: Kept while your subscription is active, or until you delete a profile. Deleted with everything else afterwards.
• Trustee profiles: Kept while your subscription is active, or until you delete a profile. Deleted with everything else afterwards.
• Security audit log: 365 days.
• Automatic error reports: 30 days.
• Account information: Retained by Clerk as long as your account exists. Contact us to request account deletion.

When you delete a distribution return. Form 4970 line 13 counts accumulation distributions you received in earlier years, so a later return carries figures forward from your earlier ones. If you delete one, we keep a small record that it existed: the tax year, the beneficiary name, and the date you deleted it. We keep none of its figures. It exists only so that a later return can tell you which year is missing and that you need to supply the amount yourself; without it, the year would simply go blank and understate your tax with no warning. This record is deleted along with everything else at the end of the retention period above.

Backups. We take a nightly backup of the database and keep roughly the last 30 of them. Data you delete, and data removed under the periods above, can therefore remain in a backup for up to about 30 days after it disappears from the live service, after which the backup containing it is itself deleted.

Renewing before the deletion date restores full access to everything. Exporting your data works whether or not your subscription is active.

7. Your Rights

You may:

• Access your data at any time through the Product (your filing data, trust ledgers, plan histories, preparer profiles and trustee profiles are all visible in your account).
• Delete individual returns, ledger entries, plan histories or their entries, preparer profiles or trustee profiles through the Product.
• Delete your account yourself, from the account menu in the Product. Your sign-in, email and name are removed straight away. Your saved returns, trust ledgers, plan histories, preparer profiles and trustee profiles are then kept for the retention period described in section 6 and deleted after it; we do not hold them indefinitely, and we do not delete them the same day. If you want them gone sooner, email us and say so.
• Export your data before you delete anything. Use Export Data on your account page; it works whether or not your subscription is active, and it includes the trust ledger history a future return would need, and your plan histories. Each plan history can also be downloaded on its own page.

Why deletion is not instant. We keep a record of a return for at least three years from the later of the date it was prepared and its due date. That is our own retention decision, so that a return we helped prepare can still be produced if it is ever questioned. It applies to a deleted account the same way it applies to a lapsed subscription. Nothing in that period is used for any purpose other than making it available to you.

If you are a resident of a jurisdiction with specific data protection rights (e.g., CCPA for California residents), you may exercise those rights by contacting us at the email below.

8. Children

The Product is not intended for use by anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from minors. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on the Product. The “Effective date” at the top reflects the date of the most recent update.

10. Contact

Material Participation, LLC
Email: [email protected]