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SALT LAKE CITY — Now that the tax season has ended, this might be a great time to clean out your file cabinets.
One of your most helpful tools will be a shredder, but what documents should go in and which ones should you keep?
Industrial shredders at Sugar House Archives and Shred rips through 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of documents each day. CFO Jason Greensides said many people are holding onto documents for too long.
"It's not uncommon for people to have 10 to 20 years worth of information that really would have been better destroyed as you go, as opposed to holding it all at once," he said.
Things you can shred right away include credit card offers and applications, courtesy checks, expired credit and debit cards, IDs, even ads or change-in-terms mailed from a bank.
While some of the items might not have your account number, they give identity thieves some information about you.
"You don't really want someone to know where you are banking," he said. "You want to get rid of those things."
It's not uncommon for people to have 10 to 20 years worth of information that really would have been better destroyed as you go.
–Jason Greensides, Sugar House Archives and Shred
Greensides said it's not necessary to hold onto credit card statements, utility or cellphone bills for any longer than a year. If you've bought big-ticket items such as a TV or a computer, Greensides said hang onto those receipts for as long as you have the item.
"In the event you need a warranty issue, or something that goes wrong with it," he said. "It's not going to do you a lot of good if the warranty time has passed, but at least you have the opportunity to fix the problem."
If your tax return was simple, Greensides says you'll be OK shredding that within four years. But, if it's more complex and could spur an audit, he says hold onto the return for at least seven years.
"If you're doing a lot of deductions, and you've got an accountant that's spent three to four hours on it, it's probably one you want to keep just in case," he advised.
In the list of documents you should never destroy, Greensides includes anything proving you've paid off a car or student loan, or your mortgage. Having those can save you a lot of grief even 20 or 30 years later.
"It's not completely unheard of for companies that come under new management or have been sold to attempt to collect on a debt that's already been paid, simply because they've got bad records," he said.
