Should You Hold Onto Your Tax Returns?

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As we were about to jump into our truck, we noticed an office worker throwing a box of old records into a dumpster. Curious, we ambled over and asked, “Gee, you sure you wanna just throw that out?” “Oh, these
are 10 years old – nobody’s gonna be able to mine anything out of those boxes.” Um, really?

When in doubt, throw it out applies to food, not your sensitive data. And tax records? Despite what the IRS advises (keeping the last 7 years of returns,) some say NEVER throw your tax records away:

  1. Should there be a gap in records, you may have a difficult time claiming Social Security.
  2. You or your company could be sued for a data breach that could put you out of business.
  3. Even old records divulge a lot of information about your customers, revenue trends, your contacts, your vendors – hackers have an appetite for the minutiae, why leave it to chance?
  4. Murphy’s Law – the minute you throw it out is gonna be the moment you need it most.

When in Doubt, Scan it

If there are past tax documents, insurance paperwork, vendor / customer information, trust a NAID certified document storage facility like SecurShred to not only scan those items, but shred your paperwork
securely. Call us to put together a plan that keeps your company out of the dumpster and in the black.