How long should documents be retained before shredding?
Are you worried about where to discard documents with your personal and sensitive information? Fret not because we at Endoshred provide a secure shredding business to help protect your data against breaches and information threats.
Why document shredding is important
Document shredding is a pivotal step in maintaining the security of your personal and business information.
Secure document shredding can help prevent identity theft, data breaches, and other forms of fraud. It also helps protect businesses from legal liabilities related to the unauthorized disclosure of confidential or personal information.
Secure document destruction also helps to protect your business from economic espionage since it destroys all confidential information that could give competitors an unfair advantage.
The shredding process prevents the readability or reassembly of documents, making it impossible for anyone to access the information.
How long should one retain the documents before shredding them?
All confidential documents have a retention period. When it comes to document or data destruction, it is also essential to understand the duration you may need to retain them. Here is a look at the retention period for a few sensitive documents.
- Accounts and book keeping: Businesses and taxable persons should retain these documents for a period of 5 years after the end of the tax period to which they relate. (https://tallysolutions.com/mena/uae-vat/records-under-vat-in-uae/#gref)
- Business tax returns: All supporting documents should be retained for 3 – 6 years or until the IRS can no longer audit your returns.
- Business operations records: Bank account statements, credit card statements, cash receipts, check book stubs, etc. should be retained for at least 7 years.
- Payroll tax records: Documents like time sheets, wages, pension, etc. should be kept for at least 4 years after the due date for taxes or the date of payment, whichever is later.
- Current employee files: should be retained for at least 7 to 10 years after the employee leaves, retires or is terminated.
- Job applicant information: should be kept for at least 3 years whether they are hired or not selected
- Ownership records: Business formation documents, by-laws, ledgers, property deeds, etc. should be retained forever (https://alyaauditors.com/how-long-should-you-keep-business-records/#:~:text=Ownership%20Records%2C%20such%20as%20business,deeds%2C%20should%20be%20retained%20permanently.)
You can outsource document destruction to professional document shredding companies. Endoshred provides secure, on-site shredding services. We specialize in securely shredding confidential documents, media, and other materials in our high-speed mobile ad fully-automated shredding trucks. We ensure convenient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly destruction services on-site. As a leading shredding company in Dubai, we are committed to sustainability. Everything we shred goes into recycling and gets used as raw material for making other paper products. In addition to document shredding, we provide secure shredding services for electronic media such as hard drives, media tapes, CDs/DVDs, etc., and other speciality materials like credit/debit cards, uniforms, branded promotional items and much more. We use secure cross-cut shredding machines that break sensitive materials into confetti-size pieces, preventing them from being reassembled.