Legal notices

The short version of everything that would otherwise be a footnote. The terms of service and privacy policy are the binding documents; this page explains them in plain English and says where they stand.

1. Nothing here is advice

PayMyTeacher is a small company that builds and runs a website. Nothing on it — not the FAQ, not an email, not a note on a form — is legal, tax, financial or investment advice, and none of it creates a professional relationship with you. Where we describe a rule, a threshold or a form, we are describing what we understand at the time of writing so you know what to look into. The people who can tell you what applies to you are a lawyer, an accountant, or your employer.

2. Where our documents stand

Our terms of service and privacy policy were written for this Service and are in force. They have not yet been reviewed by an attorney. We say so here rather than pretend otherwise. The points we have specifically flagged for that review are:

• Governing law and venue. The terms name Illinois.
• The class action waiver. The terms ask you to bring any dispute individually rather than as part of a class. Waivers like this are enforced differently from state to state, particularly when they stand alone rather than alongside an arbitration agreement.
• The limitation of liability. Our liability is capped at the greater of the platform fees you paid us in the previous twelve months or US$100, with the usual carve-outs for fraud, gross negligence and anything the law does not permit us to limit.
• Money transmission. We act as each teacher's agent for the purpose of receiving gifts on their behalf; see the next section. Whether that places us within an exemption from money-transmitter licensing is a state-by-state question that we treat as open until counsel has confirmed it.
• Privacy regimes. Which state and international privacy laws apply to a service with users across the United States.

3. How money moves, and what we are

We do not hold anyone's money. A gift is only collected when the teacher receiving it already has a verified account able to receive it, and the teacher's share is transferred to their own account as part of settling that payment. Payments and payouts are processed by Stripe under its own licences. We keep a flat 1% platform fee, stated on every page where money is discussed and on every receipt.

When a teacher claims a profile and sets up payouts, they appoint PayMyTeacher as their agent for the limited purpose of receiving gifts from supporters and directing those funds to their connected account. A supporter's payment to us, as the teacher's agent, is payment to the teacher. We do not act as the supporter's agent and we do not transmit money for any other purpose.

A gift to a teacher who has not joined is a promise, not a payment: we save what you intended, we tell you when they join, and you make the gift yourself. We never charge a card without you present, and we never store a payment method for the purpose of charging it later.

4. Taxes

Gifts made through the Service are personal gifts from one individual to another. They are not charitable donations and are not tax-deductible. We do not issue Form 1099-K or any other information return, and neither does Stripe for accounts on this platform, because we treat these payments as gifts rather than as payment for goods or services. A 1099 is a reporting form and not a decision about whether an amount is taxable; whether a gift you receive is taxable is a question for your accountant. Several states set their own reporting thresholds far below the federal one. The FAQ has the detail we know of.

5. Teachers and their employers

Most teachers are public employees, and many districts and states limit or prohibit accepting gifts connected to the job. Gifts here come from former students, usually long after they left the classroom, which is normally outside what those rules are aimed at — but the rules vary, the consequences land on the teacher, and we cannot tell any individual teacher what applies to them. We ask every teacher to check their employee handbook or ask their district's ethics or HR office before accepting gifts, and we will close a profile at a teacher's request or their employer's.

6. We are not a charity

PayMyTeacher is a for-profit company. It is not a charity, a nonprofit, a school, a district or a union, and it is not affiliated with any of them. Nothing on the Service is a solicitation for a charitable contribution.

7. Profiles created by someone else

A former student may create a profile naming a teacher in order to invite them. Such a profile is not published: it does not appear in our directory, in search on the Service or on the leaderboard, and search engines are asked not to index it. Whether a profile is ever listed publicly is the named teacher's decision alone. If you are named in a profile you did not create and want it removed, write to hello@paymyteacher.com from any address. You do not need an account to ask.

8. Reaching a person

Every notice on this page ends the same way: a person reads the mailbox. hello@paymyteacher.com.