The first part of the year inspires folks to take a closer look at their finances and organization (and often, lack thereof) and make some changes for the rest of the year. That usually involves some measure of sorting through documents, trying to figure out which ones to keep and which ones to toss.
So, what should you keep when it comes to taxes? Here are some brief guidelines:
- Keep your tax returns and supporting documentation until the statute of limitations runs for filing returns or filing for refund; see this post for more information on the statute of limitations.
- If you claim depreciation, amortization, or depletion deductions, keep those records for as long as you own the underlying property. That includes deeds, titles, and cost basis records (a quick caution: even if records aren’t needed for tax reasons, you may need them for other reasons. Make sure that you check with your mortgage company and tax professional before tossing important records.)
- If you claim special deductions and credits, you may need to keep your records a little longer than normal. For example, if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction, you should keep those records for 7 years.
- If you have employees, including household employees, keep your employment tax records for at least 4 years after the date that payroll taxes become due or is paid, whichever is later. This should include forms W-2 and W-4, as well as related pay information including benefit forms.
Keep your documents organized (arranged by year is a good start) and store your documents in a safe place; you can also scan them.
To help you get started, the good folks at Sentry Safe are giving one taxgirl reader a free fireproof safe (I’ve got one at my office, too, and I can say it’s pretty nice).
It’s easy to enter to win. In the comments below, tell me about a time you lost something important (keep it to things, no people or pets, please). I’ll choose a winner randomly (using a number generator) out of all of the qualifying entries.
Here are some more rules because, you know, I’m a lawyer and I like rules:
- Entries must be posted in the comments section below by 11:59 p.m. EST on February 9, 2011.
- Due to shipping considerations, only those residents of the US are eligible to win.
- You can enter as many times as you like but you must leave a different story each time you comment.
- Offensive comments – or comments that otherwise violate my comment policy – will be deleted and will not be considered valid for purposes of the contest. So keep the story about the time you lost your pants to yourself.
- Pingbacks and other links will be disregarded for purposes of the contest.
- You must include your full name and your email address with your entry. I won’t publish your email address, but I do need contact information for the winning entry. I respect your privacy, and I will not send you anything unrelated to your entry in this contest.
- By entering the contest, you agree that I may post any part or all of your submission including your name as a part of the contest announcements or promotions, with the exception of your email address.
I’ll tell my story to get things going:
When we first bought our house, we decided to have the floors refinished before we completely moved in. The entire first floor of the house was cleared out. Without any furniture in the dining room, it was as good a time as any to go out to eat, which we did promptly.
Somehow, in the middle of dinner, I lost my keys (it was the first and only time that happened). When we got back to the house, we couldn’t get in and we didn’t know anybody to call. A couple of locksmiths told us they couldn’t help us and suggested we call our local police. Eventually, that’s what we did, but the police said they were too busy.
After standing around on the porch for a bit, we decided to break into our own house. I started in through the front window and got a little bit stuck. That’s exactly the point at which the police decided they were not, in fact, busy. They walked up onto our porch where I, half in the window, to a completely empty first floor (!) tried to explain to the police officer that I really wasn’t breaking in. Tip: crying hysterically helps in these kinds of situations.
Fun right? Now you try!
Jessica Smith
I know it’s the most common last name around. I actually have clients ask me if that’s my real name. It is, but it almost wasn’t…
When my husband and I were to be married we went to city hall to get a marriage license before the big day. Turns out we had to have his divorce papers from his first marriage (only lasted 3 months). We spent a week looking for these papers, and the wedding was fast approaching. My hubby had moved 4 times since the divorce! Those papers could have been anywhere!!!
His mother thought she might have had them. My husband figured he would have given them to her for safe keeping. But the only place she thought she could have put them was in her fireproof lock box. And she had lost the key for it!!! So my hubby broke into his mother’s lock box and we found the divorce papers!
We were able to get the marriage license the day before the wedding. So now my name is Jessica Smith.
Well, I’ve never lost my keys. But, when we bought our house, we refinished the floors right after we bought it: literally drove from the closing and started ripping carpet out. It happened to be the one weekend where it was 95 degrees, so I lost two things: any sense of dignity about how bad I smelled, and several gallons worth of sweat.
It was worth it, though.
We just lived through a pretty big construction project at our house. We had to pack up most everything and store it in the basement for almost a year. Shortly after the construction was finally complete we had to put my mother in law in a nursing home. We scoured the basement to find our POA. I managed to find a stack of copies I made but apparently four pages were sucked through the feeder at once and I never caught it. Luckily, the pages we did have were enough. We still can’t find the original. I have lost less moving!
Well, unfortunately I admit that I have lost my keys at least twice! Last year, I worked at a small CPA firm and some issue had come up with a client’s W-2s. It was the day before they needed to be mailed out and almost the entire staff (5 people) ended up spending the night at the office completely redoing every single W-2. (It was complicated – industry-specific software and each employee had several cities to report – all different – and didn’t have the best source documentation to use) Well, the next morning, I had to teach a four-hour tax class at 8 a.m., so I drove home at 6 (had my keys), then my husband drove me to class since I was so tired (think I had my keys). My husband picked me up at noon (couldn’t find my keys) and we went back to the office to look for my keys (last place I wanted to be and still couldn’t find my keys). I searched the office, car, and school high and low, called the school for weeks later and the keys never resurfaced…so I lost my house key, car keys, Sentry safe key (lol!), and a key to the locked file cabinet at work. Not only was I exhausted, but I had a lot of work ahead of me to replace keys and frequent buyer cards at all the grocery stores around here….would love to know where they are now!!
We were working on a bunch of files in my office, and left a large filebox on the floor. The cleaning crew thought it was trash and discarded it. Fortunately, we caught it in time, and the building manager was able to retrieve it from the Dumpster (we were lucky the box was placed in the bin upright.) Now, we keep our stuff on a desk or a chair!
I, too, have a remodelling story. About six years ago I had my kitchen remodelled. It was a total gut-and-replace, so everything had leave the kitchen. I put the contents of all my cupboards into boxes in the back room, where they stayed until we were finished (about 3 months due to a mix-up in ordering the countertops). How could I lose anything, right?
The new cupboards were smaller than my old ones — and my old ones were full — so I had a space shortage. My solution was to move things back slowly as I needed them. That way, the things I used most often would have a place. In the process, the blades for my stick blender (so important to me that I fall asleep at night clutching it) disappeared. I tore the kitchen and back room apart looking for them.
They just turned up last week, tucked into a corner in the back of my knife drawer. I suppose my original logic in putting them there is that they ARE blades, but that original logic completely escaped me for six years.
About a week before my wedding, I was at Macy’s buying my soon to be hubby a watch as a wedding gift when I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring. This would normally not be a big deal, but I didn’t take that thing off for anything. Not shower. Not sleep.
So I freaked out and went on the search of my lifetime. I found it in the sheets of my bed. Apparently if had fallen off while I was sleeping. Needless to say, I take all jewelry off now before I go to sleep.
Back in the late ’80’s, I was a teenager and big into running. Remember those silky short shorts, with the built-in underwear?
One day, I drove over to the lake, a popular running spot. I dropped my car key in my pocket and did a lap or two around the 2-mile loop. Headed back to my car, I discovered that my key was no longer in my shorts pocket. It must have flown out. It could be anywhere. The lake trail is covered with trees, grass and foliage. How would I ever find my key?
I combed the 2 mile loop, practically on hands and knees searching for a glint of silver among leaves and grass. I solicited help from fellow runners. Everyone was looking for this key. But, no luck.
Giving up (and unaware that in 10 short years everyone would have a personal cell phone), I convinced the park ranger to let me use his emergency phone to call my Mom. She set out on the 25 minute drive to pick me up.
And I sat down on a bench to wait for her, but -ouch. There was something sharp. Seeing nothing on the bench but feeling a sharp object every time I sat back down, I found my key — in my underwear. It was sitting in my underwear, that underwear that’s built-in to your running shorts. This key traveled 6 miles in my underwear, and I had no clue until I sat down.
I hope this story complies with your comment policy! I know the topic is underwear (could be seen as racy) but I think your Mom would still think your readers are nice people. 🙂
Before moving to Florida, I asked my CPA how long I had to keep my tax records, because I didn’t really want to move all those boxes. He told me three years. So, I had a burn party! I used the fire pit in the back yard, and for about two weeks, I burned and burned, all my three-year-or-more tax returns, and other papers that I’d been hanging onto for years.
The very DAY I moved into my new house in Florida, I received a letter from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, auditing me. I needed to produce the past FIVE years of tax returns. I called my CPA and he still had them on his computer, thank heavens!
Three years, five years….if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep them forever. The attic is a great place for them.
Having changed firms a number of times, it was only inevitable that I would lose something. This thing turned out to be my CAF number. Now here is the catch, the IRS seemingly will only mail correspondence to the last known mailing address, which in my case, was 2 firms ago. So I needed to call that firm, tell them they would be receiving a notice from the IRS, and if they could forward that to me. Eventually I got it all straight.
When I went off to college in Scotland 25 years ago, I felt like I was leaving America behind forever. Such a momentous decision meant deciding on what to bring with me into my new life. In addition to packing clothes and a toothbrush, I decided to bring my most precious items (artwork, poetry, photos of friends and family, childhood stuffed animal and mementos). I packed all of these items, along with a fancy camera (a High School graduation present) into a duffel bag.
When I arrived in Scotland, jet lagged but excited, I was met by a friend at the airport who suggested I spend a few days with him and his parents in Glasgow. All was fine and well until his parents suggested that he and I go out to get fish and chips for dinner. When we returned from our excursion, I was told that my bag had been stolen right out of their front hallway (while they were home, no less!).
To this day, I have no idea if his parents made up that story (so they could fence my camera — in hindsight I can see that they were desperately poor, and I probably looked like a “rich American”) or if someone truly had just “randomly walked in and taken the bag,” as they claimed.
25 years later, I would still give anyone that valuable (but relatively worthless to me) camera just to have my precious personally meaningful items returned to me. That they probably ended up in a dumpster somewhere still breaks my heart.
Shortly after our wedding, our marriage license went missing. We tore the apartment apart looking for it to no avail. This was a sign of things to come as 7 years later we parted way. The marriage license never turned up.
Paid the farm taxes in cash. Lost the receipt! Farm put on the delinquent list. Searched for the receipt. Heart attack for two days. Never paid cash again. Never lost another receipt.
Some years back, I temporarily lost my car. I was going to a concert; and I was late, terribly late. I pulled into the parking lot and tossed my keys to someone I thought was a valet parking attendant, told him to go ahead and park my car, and ran in to catch the concert. Afterwards, I went looking for the valet station and was told that Severance Hall HAD no valet parking (who the heck did I give my keys to?)!
With a sinking heart, I waited until the lot had almost emptied out and, with the help of a very sympathetic fellow concert-goer, went looking for my car.
The good new was, there it was, parked near the back of the lot, keys tucked into the visor. Whoever that Severance Hall employee was, I still include him in my prayers every night.
I lost a year of tax returns for myself and a few folks when my hard drive crashed. I switched to Mac after it happened.
I had a job one summer measuring trees for a Paper Company. When I moved back to my student apartment, I made the mistake of packing some of my well worn, expensive, and favorite boots in a paper grocery bag. The bag was in the hallway and I noticed that some trash had been thrown in on top of my boots. I made a mental note to remember my boots were in the bag- but of course someone, maybe even me, threw the bag away during the move confusion. I still miss those boots…..
I lost my nice jewelry given to me as a present from my husband sometime when the kids were around age 4 and 6. Did the kids play with my pearls–which I often left in the bathroom near the sink– and they went down the drain? (yes, i looked in the drain trap). Did the babysitter take them? My cameo pin went missing too. Yes, I started locking up the valuables after that.
I was moving into my college dorm my first year of college, and since I was playing on a fall sports team, we got to move in before the rest of the freshmen.
I was very excited to be moving into this high-rise dorm that was taller than any building in my home town and to get to ride an elevator every day. I carefully put my keys on a lanyard that would hang around my neck so I wouldn’t lose them.
I was all moved in, and got a chance to hang out for a bit in my new digs before dinner with my friends. I was the only one on the entire floor so it was a little creepy, but I was very excited. I went to the elevator to go down to the lobby to meet my ride, and as I got in I looked down the crack to see how far down the elevator shaft went. Plunck my lanyard safety release came undone, and down the shaft my keys went. I didn’t even know who to call or what to do to get them back.
Once we graduated college, my roommate and I made a big move after living in the same place for 2 years. I had been keeping all of my important login IDs and passwords on a note card that I kept tucked away in a safe place. When we started packing, I made sure to put it somewhere safe where no one would find it during the move. Once we settled in to the new place and the first bill came, I went looking for the list. I tore our newly organized apartment apart! I spent hours on the phone and resetting passwords with insurance companies, identity theft protection providers, and charge card companies. I still haven’t found that list but I’ve learned my lesson for next time!
When I first moved into my apartment it was newly remodeled, from floor to ceiling. I took for granted that my new windows were locked until one day I came home from work and my front door was unlocked. I thought I had just forgotten to lock it when I left in the morning, but, alas, that wasn’t the case. Apparently, a petty thief was scouting all of the new windows in the neighborhood and helping himself to items in homes with open windows. He took several things, but the one thing that upset me the most was that he took a piggy bank I had had since I was a tot. There wasn’t much in it, but for me, the sentimental value was huge.
Last fall, we took our two dogs out to the local park for a little exercise. I drove us there in my car and stuck my keys in my pocket. After about an hour of running around with the dogs in a wide open field, I realized that the keys had fallen out of my pocket. Unfortunately, the field was covered in a layer of fallen leaves, which made it difficult to see anything on the ground. My husband, my brother and I executed a grid search and found my keys after a couple of hours of searching. I was just about to admit defeat when we found them. I don’t think that I’ll live that down anytime soon.
We lived in Atlanta from 1986 to 1994 and I gave birth to our daughter in which we had a georgia birth certificate for her. In 1994 we moved back to pennsylvania and when she turned 16 I took what I thought was her birth certificate to get her permit/license to find out this was not the right document.For a teenager this is devastating, scrambled as quickly as possible to get another copy of the Original birth certificate, which of course took over a month. We moved several times in between before we bought a home and somehow misplaced, I guess after she entered school. I know exactly where these important documents are now.
I am embarrassed to admit this but I have lost some stock certificates. I know they can be replaced but at a cost of 2% of the value. I’m still looking but I know they weren’t stolen because I still get the dividends and literature so I’m still on the company books. I had taken them out of security to show someone years ago but somehow, they never got put back. I hope they turn up as I clean up the house for sale. I’ve lost a lot of sleep of this.
I know this doesn’t count (DON’T count this, Kelly), but I think I mislaid my Steelers yesterday. Who was THAT on the field?
I get the penalties in the first half — that’s just Steeler football (although they should have cut it out after they realized the refs were watching them) — but the TURNOVERS!!! Jeesh!
When you mentioned “lost” the first thing that popped into my head was when I lost my birth certificate. Ugh. Was heading out to get a passport and of course needed it. Thought I knew where I put it but, nooooooooooo. Wasn’t there. Ripped apart the house and no where to be found. I at least now have a box where I keep these sorts of things. Love the looks of that safe. It fits files…perfect!!
Nearly five years ago, the strap on one side of a beloved purse broke and so I wound the strap around and carried the purse as a clutch since I wasn’t ready to part with it. Well, after two weeks carrying this “clutch purse”, I decided that on the weekends to just stick my wallet in my pants pocket and revert to carrying the purse during weekday. I should’ve gone out a bought another cute purse, but no, I was too cheap. Anyhoo, payday came on Thursday so my husband and I decided to go out for dinner at Outback Steakhouse because I’d been working killer hours during the year-end fiscal close process. I craved steak. Upon entering the restraurant, we proceeded to sit at the bar and I laid my make-shift clutch purse on the counter. Two or so beers later, I excused myself to go the restroom with the clutch in tow, did my business, and returned to the bar. Five minutes later I realized that I left my purse in the bathroom stall and to my horror, it was gone! I had my wallet, paystub, and $2.08. Gone. So I filed a police report. Thankfully no fraudalent purchases were made on my debit card and no one tried to use my confidential info to secure credit cards, etc. The ironic thing is when I bought a new purse at DSW the very next day after my purse was stolen, a few months later the strap broke! They don’t make things like they used to:)
Well my story is not that exciting other than it showed me why you need to have your important documents locked in a secure box. I was on assignment in Colorado and my house was burglarized by my neighbor. My neighbor took most everything out of my house except for my furniture. This included some documents out of my file cabinet.
Needless to say I was back in down the night I found out about the break in. After a few days leaning on the police detective to come out to my house he came out and got most all of my things back from my neighbor. I just never will know if I got all my documents back or not. While my neighbor might have taken the lock box it is unlikely it would have been broken into before I recovered my belongings.
Have a great day!
Back in 2001, before hurting my back and becoming a tax preparer, I was working by doing new construction cleaning. Sometimes we would visit 3-4 job sites a day, and during one of those days, I left a expensive ladder at one site because I did not need it at the site I was going to, plus I was returning later on. And there were 2 co-workers still there. Big mistake. Even though the company name was all over the ladder and the other contractors knew it was ours, it “disappeared”. In the next year I worked there, and though we worked with a lot of the same contractors, I never saw that ladder again. And it came out of my check.
More recently, I have lost my 2008 and 2009 tax returns. All I know is that they are on one of the many hard drives I use that have hundreds of GB of data on them.
Melody, I agree about the Steelers.. That was not typical Steelers football.
my parents got the kids a swing set for their birthdays, & while we were all outside putting it together, I took off my engagement ring to put sunscreen lotion on teh kids. about 30 minutes later, I realised that I didn’t have it on. I seriously panicked, but ended up finding it in the grass where I had been sitting about 10 minutes later.
My father passed away and he was an artist and I inherited contents of his art studio. Now he has not been using some of his equipment for around 25 years and alot of parts were missing. Dad had moved several times and this is bound to happen. Dad had an easel that was incomplete. Now there is a piece that would not hold onto the long bar on the back so the painting can hang while you work on it and I could not figure out how this was to hold. All I could see was a small hole that was bigger than a screw hole and this drove me crazy for weeks and I could not figure it out. One day, it hit me. I had also inherited dads tool box and had emptied all of that into mine, which was bigger. I thought maybe, just maybe something could be in the box. This was really a long shot. Well, looking into the box for just a few seconds I could not believe that I found it right on the top tray. Found it, it is what you call a thumb screw. Who knew? Now art is rightly displayed on it and looking good.
couldnt find my passport
I spent an entire weekend installing a brick pathway along the side of the house. hours of digging and moving dirt, laying base and sand, leveling and setting about 3oo bricks. Sunday evening i get a call from my boss aksing why i had not responded to being paged earlier in the day. Well, when i went to see what was on the pager, i could not find it anywere! i started paging myself, and went outside. i could faintly hear the beeps coming through the bricks. luckily i only had to pull up about 10 bricks before i found it in the sand.
I am always losing things! It comes with the age and lack of concentration. Several Christmases ago I bought this little light for my husband. He was with me and knew it was coming. Christmas came and went and about a week after the holiday he mentioned that he hadn’t gotten the light…I had no idea where I had put it to keep it safe…It was lost for almost 8 months. One day, I was rearranging my kitchen counter. Behind the microwave, I pulled out a paper bag and surprise, surprise, it was the light. No idea why I would have put it there and was surprised that I had not moved the microwave in all that time!
We can never find things like birth certificates, title to the car when we wanted to sell it, etc. We need a better record keeping system for important papers.
I really hate it when you buy something and then put the receipt in a “safe place” in case you want to return it. Well I can never find the receipt when I want to take it back. I find lots of receipts for stupid things like gum, shampoo, etc. but never for the big things like a new coat that I wanted to return!
We had our 40th anniversary party and were returning tables & chairs the next day. After the returns we stopped @ Arby’s for a shake. Hubby pulled out his wallet and paid for shakes. We drove home and I went in the house with my grandson. Hubby comes in and says he can’t find his wallet. We look all over in his truck, on the ground in the driveway, you name it, we looked. I decided to retrace his steps. Well, when he went to throw away his shake cup, his wallen went in the trash, too! Thank goodness it was found as he’s a truck driver and needs his CDL in order to work.