Privacy Policy — CA Akhilesh Kumar

This page explains what happens to information when you visit caakhilesh.in. The short version: I do not ask you for anything, I do not run an account system, and I do not sell or share anything about you. The longer version is below, because some of the tools this site uses do collect data of their own.

Who runs this site

This site is written and operated by CA Akhilesh Kumar, a Chartered Accountant based in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is an independent personal publication. For any question about this policy, or to ask me to delete something, write to hello@caakhilesh.in and I will reply within 30 days.

What I collect directly

There is no account system, no comment box and no contact form on this site. The one thing it asks you for is an email address, if you choose to subscribe to the fortnightly email. That is covered in full in the next section.

If you email me, I hold that email in my mailbox in order to reply to you, and for no other purpose.

The home page carries a form headed One piece, every fortnight. This is what happens to an address entered there.

What is collected: your email address. Nothing else is asked for — no name, no location, no other field. The form also carries a hidden field that no person sees; anything typed into it by an automated script marks that submission as spam and it is discarded.
Purpose: to send you one email each time a new piece is published, roughly every fortnight, and nothing else. The address is not used for offers, is not added to any other list, and is not shared with or sold to anyone.
Provider: the list is run on Buttondown, a newsletter service operated by Buttondown, LLC of Richmond, Virginia, United States. Buttondown acts as my processor: it stores the list and sends the emails on my instructions, under its data processing agreement and its own privacy policy.
How it travels: when you press Subscribe, your browser sends the address to this site's own domain, and a small function there passes it straight on to Buttondown. That function keeps no copy: it writes no log, file or database entry containing your address, and it does not pass on your IP address.
Consent, by double opt-in: nothing is sent to you on the strength of the form alone. Buttondown first emails you a confirmation link; the subscription begins only when you click it. An address that is never confirmed receives nothing further. Your consent is the legal basis for this processing, and you can withdraw it at any time.
Storage: the address, the date and time you subscribed and confirmed, and your subscription status are held on Buttondown's systems in the United States. That is a transfer of your address outside India (and, for readers there, outside the EEA and the UK), covered by the data processing agreement above. I do not keep a separate copy of the list anywhere else.
Processing beyond sending: I do not use open tracking or link tracking in these emails, and I do not profile subscribers. Standard delivery records (that an email was accepted or bounced) are kept by Buttondown so that dead addresses can be removed.
Retention: for as long as you stay subscribed. When you unsubscribe, or ask me to remove you, the address is deleted from the list within 30 days. Addresses that are never confirmed are removed as well, and an address that bounces repeatedly is removed.
Unsubscribing: every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link at the foot, which takes effect immediately. You can also write to hello@caakhilesh.in from the subscribed address and I will remove it by hand.

Status: the form is built and this section describes how the list is run, but the connection to Buttondown is not yet switched on. Until it is, the home page shows links in place of the form, and nothing is collected. New pieces are on the RSS feed and on LinkedIn and X in the meantime. This paragraph disappears the day the list opens.

The calculators

The calculators and the Tax Decision Engine run entirely inside your own browser. The figures you type — your salary, your deductions, your loan amount, your days in India — are not sent to my server, are not logged, and are not stored after you close the tab. You can confirm this by opening your browser's network tab while you use one.

Two things you can choose to do carry the figures with them, and it is worth knowing how. A share link places the figures after the # in the address. Browsers do not send that part of an address to any server, so it does not reach Vercel's logs or the preview services of WhatsApp, LinkedIn or X; it does travel to whoever you send the link to, and it is removed from your own address bar as soon as the page has read it. A PDF is built on your device by the page itself and saved or shared by you; nothing is uploaded to make it.

Hosting and server logs

This site is hosted by Vercel Inc. Like every web host, Vercel records standard technical request logs — IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time — for security and for keeping the service running. I do not have access to a log of your individual browsing, and these records are handled under Vercel's privacy policy.

Cookies

This site sets no tracking cookies of its own. It stores a single item in your browser's local storage — your choice of light or dark theme — so the site looks the same next time you visit. It never leaves your device and I cannot read it.

Advertising

I intend to fund this site through Google AdSense. When advertising is running on these pages, the following applies:

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and other sites on the internet.
You can opt out of personalised advertising at Google Ads Settings, or opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info.
Readers in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent before any personalised advertising cookie is set, and can change or withdraw that consent at any time.

I do not receive your personal information from advertisers, and I cannot identify an individual reader from any advertising report.

Links out

Articles here link to government portals, regulators and other publications. Once you follow a link you are on someone else's site, under their policy, not mine.

Children

This site is written for adults dealing with their own tax and money. It is not directed at children under 13, and I do not knowingly collect anything from them.

Your rights

Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you have the right to know what personal data of yours I hold, to have it corrected or erased, to withdraw consent you have given, and to have a grievance heard. If you are in the EEA or the UK, the GDPR and the UK GDPR give you the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to complain to your supervisory authority. Readers elsewhere may have similar rights under local law.

For the fortnightly email, the data held is your address and subscription record, described above. To see it, correct it, port it or have it erased, email hello@caakhilesh.in; withdrawing consent is simpler still — use the unsubscribe link in any issue. I will act on any request within 30 days, and will ask you to write from the subscribed address so that I know the request is yours.

For advertising, the profile is held by Google rather than by me, and the opt-out links above are the fastest route. For anything else, email me.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the date at the top of this page changes with it. Nothing here is applied retrospectively.