This is under the large umbrella that every business (public and private) and indeed citizen must comply with. Depending on the case involved the IRS requires that tax records be retained for 3 or 7 years and in some cases (like pension funds etc) must be maintained for the life of the business entity.

The IRS defines an electronic storage system as: An electronic storage system is a system to prepare, record, transfer, index, store, preserve, retrieve, and reproduce books and records by either:

(1) Electronically imaging hardcopy documents to an electronic storage media; or

(2) Transferring computerized books and records to an electronic storage media using a technique such as ‘‘COLD’’ (computer output to laser disk), which allows books and records to be viewed or reproduced without the use of the original program.

The ruling defines the scope requirement as pertaining to all matters under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue including, but not limited to, income, excise, employment, and estate and gift taxes, as well as employee plans and exempt organizations.

Furthermore the ruling states that a taxpayer’s use of a third party (such as a service bureau or timesharing service) to provide the taxpayer with an electronic storage system for its books and records does not relieve the taxpayer of the responsibilities described in the ruling.

It should also be noted all requirements that apply to hardcopy books and records apply as well to books and records that are stored electronically pursuant to this ruling.

Some of the requirements for electronic storage systems as set forth in this ruling are:

An electronic storage system must ensure an accurate and complete transfer of the hardcopy or computerized books and records to an electronic storage media.

At Giga Vault Storage our software uses an inherent Intelli-manager to ensure all backups are completed. Should a problem arise during a scheduled backup (connection lost to our server, etc.) our software will automatically resume the backup once the problem is resolved.

The electronic storage system must also index, store, preserve, retrieve, and reproduce the electronically stored books and records.

At Giga Vault Storage our backup solution meets all the above requirements. Our software stores your data in the ubiquitous tree format. You are able to set the retention period for your files ensuring that they will be there when needed. You have the ability to restore any file on demand 24/7/365.

An electronic storage system must include reasonable controls to ensure the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of the electronic storage system.

At Giga Vault Storage our data audit trail is second to none. Each time your data is accessed, it is tracked and recorded, each time a file is changed irrespective of the change being a single letter, or an entire paragraph our audit trail notes and records it. You can be assured that the data you store with us is in its original format.

Reasonable controls to prevent and detect the unauthorized creation of, addition to, alteration of, deletion of, or deterioration of electronically stored books and records;

At Giga Vault Storage not only do we have a world class auditing system, our entire system is exceptionally secure. Access to your account is restricted via ID / Password. You can create different encryption keys (passwords for backups) for each backup job. Most companies only store one or at the most two copies of your data. At Giga Vault storage we store four copies of your data in at least two of our world class, highly secure and monitored data centers while maintaining a 448-bit encryption level of your data at all times. At Giga Vault Storage the security, safety, and availability of your data is our primary concern.