What to keep for six years
In case you “forgot” to report at least 25 percent of your income, Uncle Sam can conduct an audit in the next six years, so if you’re a self-employed, it may be a good idea to keep 1099s that report business income for at least six years.
Some pieces of information provided on 1099s are often overlooked, that’s why you should keep them for as long as you can. It’s actually safer to store 1099s along with their receipts and other business expenses-related records.
Next, what about for seven years?…..
2 thoughts on “How Long Do I Need to Keep My Tax Records?”
I ran into a situation where I should have hung onto my pay records from 1988 (over 31 years ago). Reason: applied for social security disability. They claimed the year amount I made was wrong but I couldn’t prove otherwise which made my monthly payments smaller. Since then I came across a paper where I owed taxes for that year and had made payment to IRS each month for that year. So my opinion is the original amount was correct and they should owe me more each month.
I suggest keeping pay info such as w-2’s for life or until a person is on social security or in my case disability.
My husband, who has passed away, kept all of our tax paperwork for 40 years. I am going to moving into a much smaller house and would have to rent a storage facility to keep all that I currently have. So, I plan to deep 10 years worth of my tax filing information.