In our current day and age, security and privacy are utterly important. This is especially true when it comes to storing your tax documents, all of which contain pertinent information that could be stolen and violated.
In this article, we are going to discuss three different options that are at your disposal for storing tax documents securely.
Option #1: Go Totally Electronic
While this isn’t the first option for many that I know, going totally electronic with your tax documents is a viable, secure option. When you file your taxes via Turbotax or H&R Block online, you are actually creating electronic copies of all of your tax forms.
This means that you can shred any paper documents that you receive as soon as you enter them into one of these platforms, thereby eliminating any paper documents that could be stolen from your home.
Then, these online platforms are secured with the highest level of bank-grade security. Information stored on these servers is basically more secure than the papers that you store in your home, and they have a very, very small chance of being hacked away from you.
Method #2: Buy a Lockbox for Your Home
Of course, the electronic method isn’t one that sits comfortably with everyone. As an alternative, if you decide that you would like to keep your tax documents in your own home, the next best option is to buy a lockbox that you can securely store your documents in.
A great idea is to bolt this box to your garage floor so that it can’t be picked up and stolen. Also, you will want to make sure that the lockbox is fireproof so that it wouldn’t be destroyed in the rare case of a home fire.
Method #3: Store Your Documents in a Safe Deposit Box
Finally, if you don’t feel safe storing your documents online or in your own home using a lockbox, the only other viable alternative for protecting your documents is to store them in a safe deposit box with your local banking institution. This method is going to cost you a couple of bucks each month, but you can be fairly guaranteed that your tax documents will be safe here.
The only foreseeable problem with this method would arise when you begin to collect so many documents that the bank doesn’t have a box large enough to store them all. This can easily happen after collecting tax documents for 20+ years. However, this can be solved by paying for a second box.