View Full Version : old paperwork, taxes
Not sure if I can throw away all my old taxes, I have them since I turned 18. My real concern is that every time I come up with a way to scan and save things then something changes, all my photos are on CD's and now I have computers that do not have CD drives, I have flash drives and they can corrupt, it just seems that paper may be a good way to back things up. However who needs tax returns from 1985!
I know there's a statute of limitations from the IRS. Perhaps sweetana can weigh in here, but here is what comes up on Google (Source: irs.gov)
Keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later, if you file a claim for credit or refund after you file your return. Keep records for 7 years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction.
I am dumping re-2000. I am ripping them up and mixing with cat litter, but I realize that if someone really wanted my personal information it would not be so hard these days. Still caution is important.
That is still on my to-do list for the year.
First I wanted to wait until after I had the place treated for brown recluse....that was done 2 weeks ago so I really should start pulling out the boxes from the attic. Now I'm avoiding it because I just know there will be silverfish in those cardboard boxes (they love paper and cardboard). Federal you really only need to keep back 3 years. I'm not sure how far back Colorado can audit (Montana is 5 years, most states follow the fed guidelines). Business is longer, 7 years I think.
iris lilies
8-15-16, 10:28am
That is still on my to-do list for the year.
First I wanted to wait until after I had the place treated for brown recluse....that was done 2 weeks ago so I really should start pulling out the boxes from the attic. Now I'm avoiding it because I just know there will be silverfish in those cardboard boxes (they love paper and cardboard). Federal you really only need to keep back 3 years. I'm not sure how far back Colorado can audit (Montana is 5 years, most states follow the fed guidelines). Business is longer, 7 years I think.
The daughter of our close friends was bitten by a brown recluse spider and she has been hospitalized for 13 days. Just yesterday she fot out of ICU. I dont know how successful treatment is, but they are going to have her house treated.
I am dumping re-2000. I am ripping them up and mixing with cat litter, but I realize that if someone really wanted my personal information it would not be so hard these days. Still caution is important.
You could take some of the money you save and buy a shredder, unless ripping stuff up and mixing it with cat litter is something you enjoy doing. My shredder is at least twenty years old and gets regular use.
Amazon sells them starting at $30 (Amazon Basics).
I have a really tiny apartment, so a shredder is more about having space than spending the money. I also just rip them up while watching TV and it isn't that much total. There is a shredder at work that I could reasonably use in small batches. It is acceptable at work to do some personal printing, not 20 page documents but your paystubs or other small amounts. So I could do that. Most of what I threw away had no identifying information so I just was able to toss it out without worrying.
That is a good deal on Amazon,
iris lilies
8-15-16, 7:54pm
We burn sensitive paperwork in the fireplace, but if I,didnt have that, I would shred by hand. There are very few pieces of info that are really sensitive.
At work, I used to tear ip,sensitive documents and shred emplyee names and info into small picea and toss,those pieces over several days.
Since most of my financial life happens electronically now instead of on paper I don't have too much to shred, but what I do need to shred I keep in a pile for a few weeks and then take it to work and shred it there.
I still have all my taxes back to 1990 when I got out of college. One of these days I will take them in to work and dispose of them but they don't take up enough space to make this an urgent priority. (Until a few years ago I filed the 1040 EZ form so a year's worth of tax papers was only a few pages.) A longer term goal is to eliminate all of the papers in my two file boxes, but that just seems like such an unfun project that I've not moved past the planning stage. It ranks right up there with getting all my pre-smartphone pictures scanned.
The daughter of our close friends was bitten by a brown recluse spider and she has been hospitalized for 13 days. Just yesterday she fot out of ICU. I dont know how successful treatment is, but they are going to have her house treated.
Oh my gosh, that poor girl. Was she really young? They leave such horrible scars because the skin just rots away.
We usually have the house treated twice a year. The spiders just never gave up the fact that they were in these woods first. I put down a lot of peppermint oil as well and glue traps in-between the treatment times. I can set a glue trap tray inside one of the attic access doors and it will be covered with hundreds. Maybe this is why I dream about spiders all the time though my dream spiders are not Brown Recluse, they are black as can be.
A spider big as a dinner plate (all right, I exaggerate...) was in my sink this morning. I usually escort them to somewhere else, but I wasn't in the mood. I guess it's time to go back and look for him/her. I don't think we have a lot of poisonous ones up here. I've heard brown recluses only bite defensively, so I'm hoping for detente.
I would never use poison or torture to deal with them; if I were living where eliminating them was a necessity, I'd have geckos.
iris lilies
8-16-16, 10:39am
Oh my gosh, that poor girl. Was she really young? They leave such horrible scars because the skin just rots away.
We usually have the house treated twice a year. The spiders just never gave up the fact that they were in these woods first. I put down a lot of peppermint oil as well and glue traps in-between the treatment times. I can set a glue trap tray inside one of the attic access doors and it will be covered with hundreds. Maybe this is why I dream about spiders all the time though my dream spiders are not Brown Recluse, they are black as can be.
she is 26 years old so yeah, the scarring will matter.
wait, you have hundreds of brown recluse spiders in your traps?
our friend does have woods behnd her house, Imsuppose they come feom there.
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