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Maintaining orderly records is very important. Keeping your original documents and only sending copies out to your tax, legal, or other professionals cannot be stressed enough. Though all professional services strive to provide you with perfection, papers do get lost, misfiled, or even shredded by accident.

With the current "paperless" trend, companies have moved most of their accounting, billing, etc., into the cloud. Bank statements, credit card statements, and most of your bills can now be dealt with online without ever seeing a piece of paper. While this may save you a stamp, you still need to save or print a copy for your records.

Then there's the question of how long you need to keep the records.  Well, for the most part it depends on the records. In general, you are advised to keep a copy of your records for a minimum of seven (7) years. Although there are a few types here and there that are 1 year or 3 years.  It's better to just keep them all for 7.  This is a lot easier if you employ the use of a scanner, as scanned documents take up less space than boxes of papers to store.  If you do choose to use a scanner, make certain you use a backup service such as Carbonite or SmartVault and shred the original. You don't want anyone to get a copy of your documents. Identity thieves will stoop to anything, including going through your trash to get your tax information. As a client of the Tax Office, Inc., we can provide you with access to SmartVault.

Please remember to keep your originals! Here at The Tax Office, Inc., we are a paperless company and we scan copies of everything our clients bring us. Our files are backed up and kept in secure storage. As a client you have 24 hour access to your documents. However, we would like to remind everyone to please bring copies only! We would not like anything to happen to an original document.

If you have any questions, regarding your taxes, or your documents. We are here to help. Contact us today.