In Australia, you should generally keep bank statements for 5 years from the date you prepared them or the transaction occurred, primarily for Australian Taxation Office (ATO) purposes to support your tax returns, especially for income, expenses, or asset sales. If you're involved in a dispute or claiming depreciation, the period might extend, but 5 years is the standard for most tax-related financial records.
In Australia, you generally need to keep financial and tax records for at least 5 years, but several key business and employment records must be kept for 7 years, including employee payment/leave/superannuation details (Fair Work Act) and customer ID records for AML/CTF compliance, plus specific charity financial/operational records (ACNC). The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) also advises keeping records for the review period of later tax returns, which can extend beyond 5 years.
Most financial experts say you should keep your bank statements in either digital or hard copy for at least one year. Once they've been in the filing cabinet (or your computer hard drive) for one year, you can finally shred the paper or press the delete button.
2 years, 4 years, 10 years, or more – if you failed to lodge or deliberately lodged falsely, the ATO can target you for a tax audit. This raises the question of what kind of tax errors might be serious or suspicious enough so that they cannot be solved by simply amending a past return.
You need to keep most business records for 5 years. This period starts from when you either got the records or completed the transactions or actions they relate to, whichever is later. You must keep some records for longer than 5 years.
You must keep your written evidence for 5 years from the date you lodge your tax return. In limited circumstances, there are different time periods for keeping records or record keeping exceptions.
The conventional wisdom is you only need to keep bank, credit card and other personal finance documents for six years. This is because HMRC (the taxman) is often said to only be able to ask you to go back that far if you're being investigated for tax purposes.
The Australian tax office is using AI to track even the smallest income transactions, with Aussies warned they'll be caught for under-reporting even $50, as the tax return deadline looms. The ATO statistics reveal there are 91 millionaires who are not paying their tax properly.
If you use your former home to produce income (for example, you rent it out or make it available for rent), you can choose to treat it as your main residence for up to 6 years after you stop living in it. This is sometimes called the '6-year rule'. You can choose when to stop the period covered by your choice.
Records of capital gains tax assets
For capital gains tax (CGT) assets, you generally need to keep the record for as long as you have the asset, and then another 5 years after you sell, or otherwise dispose of, the asset.
Credit card and bank account statements: Save those with no tax return usefulness for about a year, but those with tax significance should be saved for seven years.
You must keep records for 6 years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to, or longer if: they show a transaction that covers more than one of the company's accounting periods. the company has bought something that it expects to last more than 6 years, like equipment or machinery.
Even if they're old statements, they should be shredded. Your name, address, phone number, and bank account information are in those statements, along with your habits, purchases, and banking history. Even if the account is closed, shred it anyway.
Keep Forever
If you're a consumer, you likely don't need to keep them past 90 days, but to be safe, you can keep your credit card statements for up to a year. If you make charitable donations on your cards, you may want to keep them for six years as you would any tax-relevant document.
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Capital Gains Tax works the same way for retirees as it does for anyone else. Being retired doesn't automatically exempt you from CGT. If you sell an investment property, shares, or other assets and make a profit, you may still have a tax obligation.
You'll need to add half of your profit to your income for the year. Because your profit was $100,000, you'll report $50,000 as a taxable capital gain. Your personal tax rate is then applied to the total amount of income you reported to determine how much tax you owe.
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They can be triggered if the ATO notices that the numbers don't add up: Failure to declare income. Improperly claiming deductions. Your lifestyle not matching your nominal income.
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Employment records, including wages, PAYG withholding, and superannuation details, should be retained for a minimum of five years. However, in some cases, the Fair Work Ombudsman or other regulatory bodies may require longer retention.
Treasury regulation 31 CFR 103.29 prohibits financial institutions from issuing or selling monetary instruments purchased with cash in amounts of $3,000 to $10,000, inclusive, unless it obtains and records certain identifying information on the purchaser and specific transaction information.
Disposing of confidential paperwork in a domestic bin or recycling bin can increase that risk. To guarantee data is safe, for paper and other materials, we recommend using an accredited service provider. With an accredited provider, you'll receive a Certificate of Destruction.