Originally Posted by slawecki

why do you keep the receipts?
check book?...couple months
credit card check? couple months
expense report? however long it takes company to process.
THE TAX MAN? many years.

i think the irs is 7 years. they do not visit many, but those few who are chosen, life is hell. they demanded my uniform receipts from 3-4 years. customer invoices from about the same. inventory records from 5-6 years.

the state of texas sued me for non payment of state sales tax, and demanded my records of registration of businesses from 10 years back. they also wanted all invoices to businesses in the state of texas, and payments to salesmen in texas for 10 years.(my company was in maryland, but texas was going after out of state companies in an attempt to balance their budget). they sued for $120k for non payment, 120K for penalty. they then sued me for $250k for non payment of their franchise fees.

my facility was a large one and we stacked end of year records on a large shelf "in the corner" . hard copy records went back over 20 years. we loaded them into a large van and hauled the stuff to texas. i hired a real texas lawyer, and after two years, texas quit chasing. the issue was never resolved, texas just went away.

re statute of limitations: texas claimed they had sent me a bill for something about 4-5 years after this thing started, so there was no statute of limitations.

the moral: get a box, and stick all your stuff in it.

when the irs came by the second time, they wanted all travel receipts, including museum tickets. it raises a flag when people go to a "destination" site(london,rome,paris,egypt,veince). we went, i photographed my wife as a model, and used the photos to create a 32 page catalogue. after going through all the receipts, and the tickets to the pyramids and stuff, they looked at the catalogue, and the wife, and went away.