keeping receipts....
 

Came across a stash of old car rental receipts, including one where I had to leave the car outside the gate of the airport National rental lot because they did not open until an hour after my flight.

So, guidelines on how long to keep a receipt. Hotels and airlines, I shred after I reconcile them with my cc statement. Car rentals I shred after "several months."

How "old" is old?

I scan them and forget about them. They're loaded onto the "cloud" and never to likely be seen again.

+1 - Storage is basically unlimited. Not worth the effort to go in and delete the stuff you don't need. When I kept paper, I kept it my month for 6 months and stuck the oldest envelope in the burn box every month. 60 days is probably plenty.

After cc seems sufficient, although I suppose with rental cars they might come after you for damage or tickets, and that receipt might help exonerate you. Seems unlikely though more than a few months after the transaction.

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.

Small correction:
THE TAX MAN? FOREVER

Compulsive or obsessive? Take your pick. Operating my own business since '93, now much diminished (and steadily so) in semi-retirement, I save all receipts, business and personal, in a monthly folder, 2 years worth close at hand, then into an "Annual" cardboard file box, those stacked and stored for too long, occasionally making a trip to dump those more than 7 years old at a commercial shredder. Not just the IRS (with which they twice have come in handy as life preservers) but on a number of occasions for a variety of reasons. A small price to pay when I count the number of times I've quickly been able to reconstruct what happened when, why and how much....

I know an auditor with CRA (Canadian version of IRS).

He mention a good filing system also works to your advantage at audit time. If the auditor see you are organized, everything filed properly and can pull out requested backup documentation in a heartbeat they will sign off and move onto the next. They have an unofficial audits and "scores" per month.

I have always kept car rental receipts longer than ANY others, because I have had the most trouble with car rental companies. I keep them at least 18 months.

Airline receipts I general toss immediately after the trip if all went well. If not, 6 months or longer.

Hotels I keep at least 6 months. There have been a few incidents of unauthorized or incorrect charges, including fraudlent tip inflation on behalf of wait staff.

Other purchases I keep until the CC is reconciled and paid. Usually a month or so.

Keep in mind though that all my receipts are scanned and saved on a computer by the expense company and by my employer for any tax reasons. So when I throw them out, I still retain a record just in case.

Those who save physical receipts - I had to go through looking for something from 4 years ago, stored in a cardboard box. Some of the receipts had faded to the point they were completely unreadable - they were pieces of blank paper for all intents and purposes. So maybe consider scanning them, or photocopying (with photocopier ink being more stable than receipt ink, and last for >7 years).