Tax season brings a familiar ritual for households and businesses across Boston and Newton: gathering documents, reviewing records, and filing returns. But once the filing is done, a different question often takes center stage. What do you do with all that paper? Which records should stay in your files, and which ones have outlived their usefulness and should be securely destroyed? For many residents and small business owners in Boston, Newton, Cambridge, Andover, and Worcester County, the answer involves a mix of careful retention and deliberate destruction. Keeping records too long creates unnecessary clutter and privacy risk. Discarding them too soon could leave you without documentation you need for an audit, dispute, or legal matter. Getting the balance right takes some clarity about what different types of records actually require—and what secure shredding can do for you once those requirements are met.