Private companies are required to retain its document under many laws such as Revenue Code, Accounting Act, Civil and Commercial Code, etc. Failure to comply with some requirements may cause problematic to the company as there are criminal liabilities involved.
We summarized hereunder basic requirements for document keeping that every company should aware as follows:
- All tax forms and its supporting documents such as receipt, report and invoice must be kept for at least five years;
- The company must keep tax receipts (VAT) and its supporting document as follows (a.) keep it apart from other document, (b.) categorize document on chronological basis, and (c.) indicate number for all documents on top right part of document
In addition to the above, the law also require all companies to keep tax/account documents in their place of business.
There are other document retention requirements mentioned in other regulations, however, we need to scrutinize company operation in order to consider whether it be subject to which regulation.
Nevertheless, we recommend to keep company’s documents for ten year as it is general statute of limitation under Civil and Commercial Code.