1. What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently and to provide information to the owners of the site.
2. How we use cookies
We use cookies and similar local storage to:
- Keep you signed in to your account.
- Remember your preferences and settings (including your choice about analytics cookies).
- Only if you accept analytics cookies: measure how people use our public website, with Google Analytics (see below).
3. Types of cookies we use
Essential cookies and storage: Necessary for the site to function — for example, keeping you signed in once you log in to the application, and remembering your choice about analytics cookies. These do not require consent under UK PECR.
Analytics cookies (Google Analytics) — optional, and only if you accept. We would like to use Google Analytics 4, a service provided by Google, to understand how visitors use the public pages of easytaxer.com (our home page, guides, help pages and legal pages) — for example which pages are visited, how people arrive at them and what device and browser they use — so that we can improve them. Google Analytics is only loaded after you choose “Accept analytics cookies” in our cookie banner. Until you do, nothing is loaded from Google and no analytics cookie is set; if you reject, or never choose, nothing is loaded at all. If you do not see a cookie banner on your first visit, website analytics is switched off and no analytics cookies are set. We do not use Google Analytics inside the EasyTaxer application after you sign in, and we never send it your account, HMRC or tax data. When Google Analytics runs, your browser connects to Google, which receives your IP address and browser details; Google does not store your full IP address in Google Analytics.
Advertising and tracking cookies: We do not use any. We tell Google not to use Google Analytics data for advertising: Google’s advertising consent signals are always set to “denied”, and Google signals and ad personalisation are switched off.
4. Cookies and storage in detail
The table below lists the cookies and browser storage entries currently set by EasyTaxer.
| Name | Type | Purpose | Duration | Provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| et-analytics-consent | Local storage (essential) | Records whether you accepted or rejected analytics cookies, so we don't ask again on every visit. Only written when you make that choice. | Until cleared | EasyTaxer (first-party) |
| _ga | Cookie (analytics — only if you accept) | Google Analytics: tells one visitor's visits apart from another's, using a random number. | 2 years | Google (set on easytaxer.com) |
| _ga_<ID> | Cookie (analytics — only if you accept) | Google Analytics: keeps track of your current visit (session). | 2 years | Google (set on easytaxer.com) |
| JSESSIONID | Cookie (essential) | Maintains your authenticated session inside the EasyTaxer application after you sign in. | Session | EasyTaxer (first-party) |
Our marketing pages need no third-party resources to display — the fonts, icons and styles they use are all served from easytaxer.com — so showing them sets no cookies on your browser. (Google Analytics, described above, is loaded only if you accept analytics cookies.)
Videos on our help pages and guides (YouTube). Our help pages (easytaxer.com/help) and guides (easytaxer.com/guides) show each video as a still picture with a play button. Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press play. When you press play, the video player is loaded from YouTube's privacy-enhanced domain, youtube-nocookie.com, which is run by Google. From that moment your browser connects to Google, which receives your IP address and browser details and may store information on your device, under Google's own privacy and cookie policies. If you never press play, no connection to YouTube is made and nothing from YouTube is stored. Each of these pages also writes out the video's steps in full, so you can use it without playing the video at all.
5. Managing cookies
You can change your mind about analytics cookies at any time. While website analytics is switched on, every page has a “Cookie settings” link at the bottom, which opens the cookie banner again, and the panel below shows your current choice. If you reject analytics cookies after accepting them, we switch Google Analytics off straight away and delete its _ga cookies. You can also clear the et-analytics-consent entry in your browser’s site storage and reload the page to be asked again, or block cookies entirely in your browser settings (blocking all cookies may stop you signing in to the application).