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Reduce your carbon footprint and clear out your filing cabinet. Going paperless with e-delivery of your tax forms can streamline your tax season.
By Debbie Carlson January 3, 2020 5 min read
5 min read
Photo by Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- Save yourself time with e-delivery of tax forms and documents
- Safeguard your personal information with electronic communications
- Help the environment by reducing paper forms
Tax season is just a few months away, and now’s the time to start preparing. Before all that mail starts arriving,TDAmeritrade clients can consider switchingto e-delivery instead of paper forms and statements. Getting hard copies of your records is so 20th century. There are multiple reasons to switch to paperless tax forms, and it’s a snap to swap to e-delivery.TDAmeritradeclients can log in to tdameritrade.com and edit their communication preferences (see figure 1). Having trouble? A TDAmeritrade Financial Consultant can help you change your delivery method settings.
![Paperless Tax Documents & Forms This Tax Season (2) Paperless Tax Documents & Forms This Tax Season (2)](https://i0.wp.com/tickertapecdn.tdameritrade.com/assets/images/pages/md/tax-forms-paperless-documents-tt190108.jpg)
FIGURE 1: SETTING COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES. Want to change to electronic delivery? Log in to your account at tdameritrade.com, and under the Client Services tab, select My Profile > Account Documents > Edit. For illustrative purposes only.
Darci Jensen, senior manager, tax solutions for TDAmeritrade Clearing, offered seven reasons to use e-delivery for tax forms and statements. Jensen pointed out that although the IRS truncates your Social Security and tax ID numbers on documents, there is other personal information on those forms that you might not want someone else to have. Another good reason to switch from paper is if your mailing address has changed. Physical delivery of documents can be delayed if mail is forwarded or returned to TDAmeritrade. “As long as you keep your email address updated, you’ll get the notification that your statements are available online,” she said. “The longest IRS retention period is 7 years so that's how long TDAmeritrade will keep the tax forms available online. I would strongly suggest clients save them at least that long as well,” Jensen said. Making the transition to paperless? Here are a few things to note before you ditch the shoebox and fire up the shredder. The statute of limitations on an IRS audit is six years. But that doesn’t apply if a taxpayer files a fraudulent return or fails to file at all. Do you track work-related expenses? It’s generally okay to toss receipts for expenses under $75, with the exception of lodging. And if you’ve been hanging on to old pay stubs, there’s no need. You can toss them as soon as you’ve reconciled them against your W-2. And about those stock portfolios: Be sure to keep all of your brokerage confirmations and statements for securities and mutual fund purchases until three years after the security is sold. This is especially important if you have any paperwork on dividend reinvestments. If you’re setting your communication preferences to e-delivery, refer back to figure 1 and make sure your trade confirmations are set to paperless as well. “It’s much easier to keep track, especially when you have multipage documents that can get out of order. The management is much, much simpler,” Jensen said. So sign up today for paperless tax documents and statements. It’s more convenient, makes document storage easier to manage, and offers greater security. TDAmeritrade does not provide tax advice. We suggest consulting with a tax-planning professional with regard to your personal circ*mstances.Need a Reason to Switch to Paperless Tax Forms? How About Seven?
By Debbie Carlson
Ticker Tape Contributor
Key Takeaways
- Save yourself time with e-delivery of tax forms and documents
- Safeguard your personal information with electronic communications
- Help the environment by reducing paper forms
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