What to keep for ten years
As soon as you get rid of paying taxes to a foreign government, you will be entitled to a credit and/or a deduction on your U.S. individual tax return.
For instance, if you claimed almost ten years ago a deduction and now you have second thoughts, you can easily claim a credit. All you have to do is to file an amended return. This rule also applies to foreign tax credits, meaning that you have ten years to correct your credit.
That’s why you must keep related documents and records to foreign taxes for 10 years.
And finally…..
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.