You can deduct home mortgage interest [1]. Another way in which homeownership and to an extent NIMBYism is subsidized in the tax code and by government policies.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p936#:~:text=You%20can%20de....

> I thought this thread was about utility bills

It was, which is why your comment starting with "As a business" was so bizarrely off-topic.

> Is this a weird american thing? At least here in the UK mortgage interest deductions are only applicable to businesses.

Yes. American homeowners can under most circumstances treat their mortage interest payments as tax deductable.

> It was, which is why your comment starting with "As a business" was so bizarrely off-topic.

What do you mean by off-topic? Businesses receive utility bills too, and might genuinely be required to keep records of those.

As far as I can tell, barring some very special circumstances, individuals never need to keep such records.

> As far as I can tell, barring some very special circumstances, individuals never need to keep such records.

This is blatantly false. Unless paying taxes is a "very special circumstance."

People don't want these records at hand purely for their own amusement, which seems to be the assumption you're operating under here.

In what situation will an individual need to supply their utility bills to the taxman during an audit?

> This is blatantly false. Unless paying taxes is a "very special circumstance."

I’ve certainly never needed to pull up my utility bills while paying taxes as a private person.

It really feels like you’re just coming up with stuff, utility bills aren’t normally tax deductible (unless you are a business). There’s no reason you’d ever need them for the taxman any more than your grocery story receipts.

Wow, you really created an account to make that comment?

> In what situation will an individual need to supply their utility bills to the taxman during an audit?

The bills would be useful if they expensed some of those payments, deducted them, or whatever. With a record number of people working from home, some portion of those expenses might be tax deductible for some people, some people might receive reimbursements from an employer, etc.

(nobody said anything about an audit)

> I’ve certainly never needed to pull up my utility bills while paying taxes as a private person.

I think we can all agree that if you have never done this, it's unthinkable that anyone would ever do this.

You would save the records for deductions or business expenses or whatever as a bookkeeping measure - and as a tax precaution, yes - even if you were not expecting an audit. Audits are fairly unusual.

(Way, way upthread jacquesm cited tax audits as a reason for these records to be physically provided, but they're a useful and common means of communication when employing a tax preparer or bookkeeper as well. And back to the original point, this is all even more likely to be true of an "old" person.)

The cost of saving paper records, for an individual, is fairly close to zero, whereas it's a colossal pain in the butt to track down stuff later. Make that mistake once and you won't do it again.

> You would save the records for deductions or business expenses or whatever as a bookkeeping measure - and as a tax precaution, yes - even if you were not expecting an audit. Audits are fairly unusual

I think you are just repeating original comment here. Regular people in regular situations will never need their old utility bills for tax purposes.

Those choosing to e.g. run a business, pick up various extra responsibilities in doing so. In that case it’s absolutely your own responsibility to maintain good records, and you should print electronic invoices if you so desire.

If you run a business and are using your utility bills as a basis for deductions, you’d have to be stupid to not safely store them (digitally or physically).

Paper invoices should be opt-in, not opt-out. Very few people actually require them.

> In what situation will an individual need to supply their utility bills to the taxman during an audit?

Under IRS rules, some people who WFH can often deduct part of their home expenses, including utilities.

See IRS Form 8891 line 21, labelled "Utilities"

As far as I can tell this exclusively applies to self-employed people, i.e. someone running a business from their home.

Post 2017 it does, only people who are 1099, so it includes many software engineers who are contractors. Before 2017, it included employees too. So, some plain-old w2 employees still have utility bills lying around subject to audit.

There is a federal mortgage interest tax deduction, and there may also be a state level deduction depending on the state since they each have different tax laws. On the federal level, 90%+ people do not use the mortgage interest tax deduction because doing so would cost them more than not using it.

It is an American thing, and it's often more than just mortgage interest, as it is standard to have our property taxes and insurance(s) escrowed through the mortgage as well.