When you decide to file a claim for a loss regarding worthless securities or bad debt deduction, you should keep records for seven years. Those seven years represent the amount of time you have to claim a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction.
Related documents and records should be kept safe for seven years too. To make sure they are safe, you should consider opening a safe deposit box.
Next, what about for ten years?…..
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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.