Lost all my receipts!

We lost a bunch of my credit card card receipts and statements that had something to do with taxes! What's going to happen now?

I guess I can get back the statements from my credit card company but the CC slips are gone for good...plus I noticed on a bunch of them the ink is wearing off.

If it's for stuff you want to deduct this year I strongly suggest getting the statements. Of course, it's not like the IRS needs to see the receipts -- unless you get audited!!!

If there's no way to actually recover the information, it's better to just pretend those purchases never happened. You may try to do your taxes completely honest, but if ever you get audited, you're toast. Better safe than sorry, and paying penalties and interest.

Kobraboy,

Puck is conservative on this issue.
You indicate you did not lose all of your receipts and statements.
Consider how much of a deduction did you lose?

Protect those receipts that you did not lose.
Then get copies of your CC statements, and mark your deductions.
Complete Schedule A and enjoy the deduction.

the IRS sucks ... but every now and then they show a little humanity. in this case you didnt really tell us how they were lost. lets say that you had a fire in your home or business and the records went up in smoke. the IRS will allow you to "reconstruct" your lost records with an explanatory note and verifying documentation (like an official report on the fire issued by a governmental agency). of course, your expenses need to be "reasonable" which PROBABLY means not far different than in prior years.

but you still have a bit of a sticky whicket. how do you reconstruct records if your receipts are gone? can you just guess? on that i strongly recommend having a tax professional give you some options.

in the future you may want to consider a "business" credit card upon which you put all of your expenses. i do this not because my receipts might go up in smoke but because i am notorious about misplacing them.

Well, some of the receipts were for prior tax years. So, if I get audited I might be screwed. On the whole, it's not a lot...max $2000 of work on the house.

Work on your house is not a deduction, unless it is a rental. If it is your primary residency, it simply gets added on to your cost basis in the event of a future sale and is not deductible for income tax purposes.

Also, if you did not spend an enormous amount, the IRS standard deduction should be adequate enough to cover what a typical consumer in your tax bracket would normally spend...and you don't even need the receipts to prove it.