Ohio Department of Taxation Privacy Statement

Web Privacy, Security and Links to Other Sites Policy

This page discloses the information that is and is not collected from users of tax.Ohio.gov. It also contains background on the security measures in place at the Ohio Department of Taxation to safeguard sensitive information and on steps taxpayers can take to protect themselves.

Privacy and tax.Ohio.gov

We know that your privacy is important to you, and that is why we have taken many steps to ensure your personal information is protected. You may freely visit this web site without ever revealing any personal information about yourself.

However, for certain activities — such as electronic tax filing or using the "Contact Us" section of our website — we may ask you to provide certain personal information about yourself. This information includes your name, mailing address, e-mail address, and other personally identifying information. It is completely voluntary for you to provide this information. However, this information is used to process your return promptly and accurately or to answer specific questions regarding refunds, bills and assessments. It will be used only for these purposes. Our secure pages utilize 128-bit SSL encryption to provide an appropriate safeguard for protecting your personal information.
   

We will use the personal information that you voluntarily provide to us to correspond with you, process an online request for information (for example, the status of your tax refund), or some similar action authorized by yourself.
   

Unless required to do so by law, we will not distribute your personal information to anyone.  However, in order to complete credit card payment transactions it is necessary for the Ohio Department of Taxation to share credit card-related information with Official Payments Corporation.

The Federal Privacy Act of 1974 requires us to inform you when providing us with your Social Security number is mandatory. In certain situations — such as when filing a tax return electronically on this Web site — we require you to provide us with a Social Security number. Ohio Revised Code sections 5703.05, 5703.057 and 5747.08 authorize us to request this information. We need your Social Security number in order to properly administer Ohio's taxes. Your failure to supply any information on a tax form prescribed by the tax commissioner may result in the imposition of penalties for failing to file a complete tax return.

Also, in order to generate usage statistics to help us improve our Web site, we automatically collect statistical information on the web traffic to our pages.
   

Safeguarding Your Personal Information

We take very seriously the integrity of the information and systems that we maintain. As such, we have instituted security measures for all information systems under our control so that information will not be lost, misused or altered.

For site security purposes and to ensure that our Internet services remain available to the public, we employ software programs to monitor traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or otherwise cause damage. In the event of authorized law enforcement investigations and pursuant to any required legal process, information from these sources may be used to help identify an individual. We shall not attempt to identify an individual using this site unless that individual is suspected of illegal behavior against this site.

Protecting your privacy and your information is a top priority. We have taken careful measures to secure both your information and our physical premises. We exercise great care in providing secure transmission of your information from your personal computer to our servers. Our secure server software encrypts information, ensuring that all Internet transactions remain private (unless sent by an unsecured means, such as e-mail).
    

We use strong encryption to ensure that all sensitive information is protected from any possible disclosure. Your online confidentiality is assured through our SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. We recommend that you use a browser that is configured for 128-bit encryption (40-bit is the default for some browsers).

Steps You Can Take

Please do not respond to unsolicited emails that claim to come from the Ohio Department of Taxation, or any email from an unknown party asking you to submit personal, tax, or financial data. The Ohio Department of Taxation does not use email to request this type of information. If you have any questions regarding an email that you receive from the Ohio Department of Taxation, please contact us to verify the validity of the email.

Links to Other Sites

The Ohio Department of Taxation's Web site includes links to other government entities and private businesses. These are provided for your convenience. However, the Ohio Department of Taxation can neither endorse the products or services offered by those other entities and businesses, nor provide assurances regarding their privacy policies.

More information

If you have any questions or comments regarding our Web site privacy, security or links to other sites policy, please contact the Communications Office at (614) 644-6896 or by e-mail at the following address: privacy@tax.state.oh.us.