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Friday August 18, 2017

Washington News

Protecting Your Financial and Tax Records

As the summer season approaches, the IRS published IR-2017-98 with suggestions for safeguarding your tax and financial records. Summer is often the peak season for hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and other natural disasters.

1. Disaster Plans - Both businesses and individuals should have a disaster plan. It is helpful to review this disaster plan each year. Your plan may reflect the type of risk in your location. With a hurricane or flood, you may have a day or more of notice. If you are victimized by a tornado, there is often no notice and no time to take protective actions.


2. Electronic Documents - You should have a secure version of all bank statements, tax returns and insurance policies in a safe location. You may want to scan your documents and save them as PDFs. You can then upload these PDFs and other electronic documents to an external hard drive, a USB drive or burn them to a CD or DVD.


3. Records of Valuables - If you have art, a collection, jewelry or other valuable personal items, it is helpful to have photos or videos of these valuable items. These records will be useful if you later must file an insurance claim or report a loss for tax purposes.


4. IRS Assistance - The IRS has a disaster office, which you can contact by calling 866-562-5227. It may be able to assist you with copies of tax returns or forms W-2. You also may request a tax return with IRS Form 4506. Another option is the Get Transcript link on www.IRS.gov.

Published May 12, 2017

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IRS Help during Peak Tax Season

The information contained in this website is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or financial advice on any matter. We encourage you to seek the advice of an attorney and/or a financial planner with expertise in special needs planning who can advise you on how to protect both current and future financial needs.