After last week’s breather after the end of tax season (and I still say I deserved it), there are a few lingering ideas I want to mention before maybe leaving taxes behind for more than a week at a time over the coming months.

First, for those who have finished their tax work for the year, one may start to wonder what to do with all the paperwork you gathered to file your return. Well for now, keep it. If supporting paperwork was necessary for your return, right down to every receipt, it is best to bundle everything together just in case you end up needing it. I wrote a few times over tax season about the chances of an audit, so I do not want to go back into it here, but let us just go with the idea that there is a non-zero chance you could face one. Even if you filed the most accurate and legal of tax returns then, it is best then to keep all of those papers and forms together.

But for how long?

I don’t want to go into the minutiae of recordkeeping and timeframes here, but if you are interested in knowing more about it, read this article on Forbes.com, where author Kelly Phillips Erb gives more detail in concise and understandable language. Essentially, though, that statute of limitations on a tax return that is correct and timely is three years after the due date. Anything clearly fraudulent, or simply not filing a return, comes with no time constraint, though, and you can always be called to task on those. Then there are some lesser crimes/mistakes that can extend the statute of limitations to six years.

So it is really up to you how long you want to hold onto your paperwork, but three years should clearly be the minimum. Holding on to the end of that six-year limit is probably an even better idea, though, and just how much space are those folders in the cabinet taking up anyway?

And at least you filed a return. The IRS released a notice on April 13 that nearly 40 million taxpayers were expected to still file returns or extensions before the deadline of the 18^th. Now I clearly was not unaware of the tendency some taxpayers have to finish things up at the last minute (and how this can involve a barrage of questions thrown at a tax professional), but that number was much higher than I would have estimated.

Now of course part of this number is due to the fact that no one really LIKES to handle their tax returns. Those of us who get some enjoyment out of all that paperwork are clearly the outliers. I also have to think, however, that a great deal of this isn’t the sole realm of the tax return, but the fact that many people only worry about their finances when situations force it, and those are rarely happy occurrences.

One of the best parts of what I do is when I see people, whether they are simply individuals or business owners, have the weight of handling their finances lifted from their shoulders. For a lot of times I find that people don’t want to ignore their finances, they often do not even know where to start to make them make sense. When one finds that way out, it can provide a lift that reinvigorates passions that were held down by worries and uncertainty.

So if you find yourself in a situation like that and it was highlighted during this tax season, you should take action now to make sure it doesn’t happen again next year. And if this is something we could help you with, for we can’t wait to move into that next part of that cycle of the financial year.