How Long Should Businesses keep tax documents?
Tax document retention guidelines for small businesses You may have breathed a sigh of relief after filing your 2017 income tax return (or requesting an extension). But if your office is strewn with reams of paper consisting of years’ worth of tax returns, receipts, canceled checks and other financial records (or your computer desktop is filled with a multitude of digital tax-related files), you probably want to get rid of what you can. Follow these retention guidelines as you clean up. General rules First, Scan everything! If your documents are not already kept in electronic format, scan everything into PDF files Scanners are cheap and so is storage. It is better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it! Retain records that support items shown on your tax return at least until the statute of limitations runs out — generally three years from the due date of the return or the date you filed, whichever is later. That means you can now potentially throw out rec...