Give yourself a pat on the back for surviving 2024 Tax season.
Now onto 2025.
Here are some hacks to keeping your tax return process more organized and less stressful:
- Keep a large envelope by your desk and label it [Year] Taxes. Every time you get the mail, after the tax bills are paid, it goes straight into your tax envelope.
- Go to your pharmacy and ask for annual receipts for prescriptions. I believe both Walgreens and CVS both have those options online.
- Call your dentist’s office for a copy of the entire year’s billing summary.
- Create a list of online documents that need to be printed out in January. Here are some to get your started:
- Mortgage 1098
- College Tuition 1098-T
- Proof of Health Coverage
- Property Taxes (If you are paying out of pocket, not through your mortgage company.)
- Car Excise Tax
- Investments from your brokerage firm: Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Etc.
- Rental Property. If you manage your own rentals, keep a spreadsheet of income and expenses.
- Business. Keep bank & credit card statements and tax returns for 7 years. If you’re pressed for space, you can store electronic versions of statements.
- Quarterly Estimated Taxes. Keep a copy of all the taxes you prepaid for the year. I always photocopied all my checks before mailing them out. Or you can save a pdf copy of all the tax receipts you paid online and save them in secure place.
- Ask the Accountant. Keep a notepad of any questions you may have, especially any life events like getting married, new baby, death in family, inheritance, buying or selling house, stock options, etc.
News from Intuit
Intuit the tax software company, is purging all 2013-2016 by November 15, 2024 from their cloud system. This is a reminder for all tax clients to either print out a hard copy of their tax returns or store it in a secure place. (My recommendation is to do both.) 🙂
How long should I keep my tax returns? It depends. IRS audit window is 7 years, but I’ve discovered some clients have come across IRA basis issues and ended up filing amended returns older than 7 years.
What if I run out of space in my tiny apartment/home? Sign up for your IRS Tax account today. At least you should be able to print out your most recent tax transcripts from IRS database. I recommend every taxpayer sign up for IRS Tax Account, because it makes it easier to pull tax records and read all the IRS communications in one place.
