*Loan,banking and credit>>>income tax

How long do you have to keep old income tax returns and other financial records?

Minimum of 3 years,, longer would be good

IRS: Time to keep records: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/arti...

Best of luck
http://www.realestateformnm.com...
keep all portions of at least 3 years. Also keep ALL of your state and federal 1040's (Just the 1040 sheet will be fine for that.)
You are subject to a general IRS audit for three years back from the current tax year. In 2007 you will need all your 2006,2005,2004 records if audited. If you are 鈥渟uspected鈥?of tax fraud you are subject to audit forever. You are required by most states to keep "business records鈥?for 7 years. If you had any Schedule C activity your tax returns are for sure a business record. Retaining your W-2 forms to confirm your Social Security Benefits when you begin to collect is always advisable. There are other legal matters that can arise that it would be to your advantage to produce your tax records. I currently have a situation involving thousands of dollars, which will require 18-year-old tax records, be produced to make a legal point. That case has nothing to do with the IRS but those records are the best evidence available (who would ever lie to the IRS) to prove a given issue. The best answer is to keep income tax records until three years after you are dead because of estate taxes and all of the other legal matters in which they can be helpful. I would take a deduction for the cost of the file cabinet necessary to do so if you only use it for tax records.
You are not required by law to keep anything, but it is a good idea to keep records for at least 3 years since that is the time period in which the IRS routinely pulls returns for audit. If you throw everything away before that, it will be a pain to try to reconstruct it.
However, if you are doing something that might look like fraud to the IRS, keep things forever, since there is no staute of limitation on fraud.