
Ask HN: How do you store your tax documents? - olegious
I did a quick search and I don&#x27;t think this has been discussed before.  Just curious how HNers store their sensitive documents like tax returns, W2s, etc.  I prefer electronic storage (no paper).
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joshuaheard
I keep my tax documents the same as I do other documents. I download all the
forms from my financial institutions (W2, 1099, 1098, etc) in PDF format and
store in a Tax folder in My Documents, with a subfolder for each year. I do
all my worksheets in an Excel spreadsheet in the same folder. Paper documents
I scan to PDF and store there and shred. Once I complete my return
(freefilefillableforms.com), I print to PDF and store in the same folder.

The tax folders get backed up to a second hard drive on my machine, and then
to Carbonite, with my other documents.

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pnutjam
I have a local server that I store all my personal documents on. It's backed
up to a 2nd internal drive, btrfs, which then takes a snapshot.

It's also backed up to a cloud server with borg, which is encrypted and
doesn't trust the endpoint.

Aside from that, I keep all the paper copies of forms I receive in a filing
cabinet. In January each year, I put the last year on a folder and just throw
all my paperwork in there as it arrives. I have folders going back to 1999,
the year I was married.

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zaphodX
you sent me down a rabbit hole on backup strategies.. Thanks for borg info

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rabboRubble
I'm super late to this thread, but I've done a deep dive into this area and
I'm happy to share what I do.

* First, I am about 99.9% paperless. Anything older than prior year is electronic. Some current year documentation is not yet scanned, but will be during the tax prep season

* Second, backups. Follow the rule of three. One offsite (crashplan), two onsite (main computer + storage device), three different file systems (whatever crashplan uses, OSX, Netgear / USB). I test my offsite recovery monthly with a sample selection.

* Three, I have a single precise location on computer with directories for each tax year.

* Four, I have subdirectories under each tax year that have a consistent retention requirement. 1 year after filing, 3 years, 5 years (FBAR), 7 years, until my retirement so +30 years, and until my death so +50 years, and active meaning do-not-delete until the tax event closes whereupon the retention period can be set. So like US bank statements that have a 1099, statements go into directory A with a 1 year retention. 1099s go into a different directory with a 3 year retention. A purchase of a new stock, the confirmation for that transaction would go under "active" meaning there is no deletion date, and that confirm would stay under "active" until the stock position was sold. At time of sale, that data is refiled into the correct tax year, where the appropriate retention period is applied to the info.

* Five, I use an application called TagSpaces, create a date specific retention framework, then tag each sub-directory from steps three and four with a destruction date. So tag "2019-12-31-7yr" was applied I think to tax year 2011. This past new year, I checked all objects tagged "2019-12-31-7yr", made sure nothing was misfiled under the tag, and then delete the object. Eventually a specific tax year will only have things intended to keep until retirement and until my death.

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leerob
Google Drive. Might not be the best, but it is easy.

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somada141
+1 for Google Drive, I actually scan and keep all my documentation (receipts,
statements, scans of documents like passports, driving licenses, etc) by year
and rough category and share the entire folder with my wife so she can do the
same for electronic receipts etc. I then shred and dispose of all but the most
critical documents for which originals may be required (certificates etc).

This way I can use Alfred/Spotlight to search both by name as well as
searching through the content for OCR’ed PDFs.

Overall the system has been working pretty well for about 10yrs now but I
wouldn’t mind OCR’ing some of the earlier documents for easier search.

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moepstar
Ultra-late to the party, however, you may want to look into this project:
[https://github.com/the-paperless-project/paperless](https://github.com/the-
paperless-project/paperless)

Tbh, i don't use it yet, but will once i get my homelab up and running (should
be any moment _cough_ )

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dervjd
PDFs in Dropbox, stored in an encrypted sparse disk image
([https://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/natsci/sparse](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/natsci/sparse)).
I keep an additional copy of the encrypted disk image on a flash drive in one
of those fire-resistant lockbox things.

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eb0la
Google Drive + Google sheets

I have a google drive folder with the information I need (bills, returns,
forms, etc).

On top of that I have a google spreadsheet that links to the file and
calculates amounts (like VAT paid) extracted (by hand) from the files. This
acts both like an spreadsheet and an index to the data ;-).

Everything is shared with my SO just in case something happens to me.

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newscracker
In an encrypted volume using Veracrypt with a strong password. With this,
where I store this encrypted file isn’t a huge concern from the privacy point
of view, though I do store it online in a couple of places and have adequate
backups.

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allworknoplay
PDFs in dropbox. I coincidentally just saved this year's w2 there, and noticed
they go aaaaalllll the way back to 2002; I can't believe I was actually
diligent in college!

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farski
I have an encrypted sparse bundle disk image (.dmg) that I use to keep all
documents like that: tax, bank and investment statements, insurance policies,
etc.

It lives on an external drive that is backed up to Backblaze. Since it changes
fairly infrequently, I'll also manually drop copies of it on other clouds
occasionally.

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majewsky
In a Git repo. People say that Git does not work well for binary files, but
that applies only to large files (which most PDFs are not) or files that
change a lot over time (which tax documents should not). For LOCKSS purposes,
the Git repo gets cloned to different PCs or USB sticks.

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2rsf
> People say that Git does not work well for binary files

it doesn't, but in your case of using Git as storage it doesn't really matter.
A few extra seconds in cloning the repo are meaningless.

Having said that, have you tried Git LFS ? Shallow clones ?

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majewsky
Git LFS requires a canonical location on a server, which this repo does not
have. It's just cloned between machines that I use.

And I don't see why I would use shallow clones for a document repo where the
contents are all append-only. I don't win anything since nearly all the blobs
are in the most recent commit anyway.

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sp332
LOCKSS - Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.

At minimum three copies, one offsite in case of disaster and and preferably
offline in case of ransomware. The details matter less unless you're worried
about someone leaking your W-2 information?

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silicon2401
I like to use the 3-2-1 rule. At least 3 copies, in at least 2 different forms
(i.e. cloud and a hard drive at home), and at least 1 of which is off-site.

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matheweis
I keep mine in an encrypted disk image (default support in Mac OS), with the
image itself backed up as appropriate. Very simple, straightforward, and
secure.

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ars
I store them as files in my home directory. I mark them as inviolate (chattr
+i) and they are of course backed up along with all my files.

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jdkee
Paper in a safety deposit box at the bank going back seven years. It’s the
only way to be sure.

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2rsf
> It’s the only way to be sure.

Why ? for example what's wrong with triple digital backups on different
vendors and locations ?

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smoe
I have a backed up digital and a print version of a "bureaucracy-folder" where
those kind of documents go. There is a section for things that I reasonably
often need access to (e.g. certificate of employment, copy of working visa,
vaccination certificate, etc.), the rest is basically just an append-only
store.

I like to keep my personal life simple, so there is not much documents overall
and i pretty much never needed access to anything older than weeks. When I was
freelancing I had a more elaborate document management system in place
regarding that work, but now this works just fine.

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throwawaypa123
google drive that backs up folder on computer. I scan everything.

