Rental repair receipts how long to keep (rental property, record, period)

[Steve19605]

So decided to finally scan all my records and go paperless.

Thousands to scan.

But with repair receipts for rental property. How long do I really need to save.

This is for repairs only and NOT improvements.

Should I keep all of them . Some going back 30 years?

Thanks

[Katie1]

For normal people its 7 years But I dont know about business. Ask your Tax person. BTW I Still have ALL my 15 years of Business Records & havent even Been in Business since 2000!!

[oregonwoodsmoke]

It used to be that the IRS would go back 7 years, but there was recently a rider tucked onto a different bill that removes any time limit on how far back the IRS can look.


So, find a safe place to store those 30 year old receipts and hang onto them.

[jiminnm]

This is a good explanation of the IRS statute of limitations.
https://landmarktaxgroup.com/irs-bac...of-limitations

[KaraG]

Originally Posted by jiminnm

This is a good explanation of the IRS statute of limitations.
https://landmarktaxgroup.com/irs-bac...of-limitations

That only refers to how long they have to collect taxes that they've told you that you owe.

Here's the IRS topic on business receipts:

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc305

Period of limitations for assessment of tax (getting audited):
3 years - For assessment of tax you owe, this period is generally 3 years from the date you filed the return. Returns filed before the due date are treated as filed on the due date.

No limit - There's no period of limitations to assess tax when you file a fraudulent return or when you don't file a return.

6 years - If you don't report income that you should have reported, and it's more than 25% of the gross income shown on the return, or it’s attributable to foreign financial assets and is more than $5,000, the time to assess tax is 6 years from the date you filed the return.
....

Property Records
Keep records relating to property until the period of limitations expires for the year in which you dispose of the property in a taxable disposition. You must keep these records to figure your basis for computing gain or loss when you sell or otherwise dispose of the property.


Note: I've been through a full audit. I've always filed complete taxes for our business. Knowing how the audit worked, I now keep our business records 5 years and then shred them. If I owned business property, I'd keep the records for 5 years after I sold the property.

[SUPbud]

So if you scan and go paperless, and you have a good automated system to scan + store, and then DESTROY/SHRED the physical copy, what's the big deal?


There is no 'storage burden' for your electronic documents. There may be an 'organization burden'.



There is very much a 'clutter burden' if you also keep the physical copy (or dont scan, and only keep physical copy).



10 years. That's all I do for operating expenses.


Things like Grant Deeds, naw keep that forever. I had to produce documents from 50 years ago (I'm not kidding) for a court case. (real estate not tax issue).

[oceangaia]

Going paperless will greatly reduce the hassle of storing them so I'd scan them all. I'd probably create folders by year. If there aren't many repairs in a year, maybe by decade.