{"id":478,"date":"2011-07-11T17:48:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T22:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/?p=478"},"modified":"2011-07-11T17:48:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T22:48:42","slug":"how-to-prepare-before-a-disaster-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/?p=478","title":{"rendered":"How to Prepare Before a Disaster Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A home disaster can be stressful enough without reconstructing important<br \/>\nrecords and accounting for belongings. The Internal Revenue Service encourages<br \/>\ntaxpayers to safeguard their financial and tax records before disaster strikes.<br \/>\nListed below are four simple tips for individuals on preparing for a disaster.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Recordkeeping<\/strong> Take advantage of<br \/>\npaperless recordkeeping for financial and tax records. Many people receive<br \/>\nbank statements and documents electronically and important documents like<br \/>\nW-2s and tax returns can be scanned into an electronic format and stored<br \/>\non a flash drive or CD in a safe place. Keep it with other essential<br \/>\ndocuments like home-closing statements, vehicle titles, insurance records<br \/>\nand birth, death or marriage certificates and legal paperwork. Some online<br \/>\nservices can automatically back up computer files and store them offsite.<br \/>\nRegardless of how you save your documents (whether it is electronically or<br \/>\non paper) ensure they are safe from the elements, but also encrypted<br \/>\nand\/or locked up to guard against disclosure or theft.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Document Valuables<\/strong> The IRS has disaster<br \/>\nloss workbooks for individuals that can help you compile a room-by-room<br \/>\nlist of your belongings. One option is to photograph or videotape the<br \/>\ncontents of your home, especially items of greater value. You should store<br \/>\nthe photos or video in a safe place away from the geographic area at risk.<br \/>\nThis will help you recall and prove the market value of items for insurance<br \/>\nand casualty loss claims in the event of a disaster.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Update Emergency Plans<\/strong> Make sure you have a<br \/>\nmeans of receiving severe weather information; if you have a NOAA Weather<br \/>\nRadio, put fresh batteries in it. Make sure you know what you should do if<br \/>\nthreatening weather approaches or if a fire occurs.\u00a0 Review your<br \/>\nemergency plans annually.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Count on the IRS<\/strong> In the event of a<br \/>\ndisaster, the IRS stands ready to help. The IRS has valuable information<br \/>\nyou can request if your records are destroyed. If you have been affected<br \/>\nby a federally declared disaster, you can receive copies or transcripts of<br \/>\npreviously filed tax returns free of charge by submitting Form 4506,<br \/>\nRequest for Copy of Tax Return, or Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of<br \/>\nTax Return.\u00a0 Clearly indicate the official name of the disaster in<br \/>\nred at the top of the form, to expedite processing and waive the usual fee<br \/>\nfor tax return copies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A home disaster can be stressful enough without reconstructing important records and accounting for belongings. The Internal Revenue Service encourages taxpayers to safeguard their financial and tax records before disaster strikes. Listed below are four simple tips for individuals on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/?p=478\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-individual","category-taxation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoorfarlaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}