Companies keep them.

Accountants keep them.

They are the one category of financial document that nobody ever throws away, and Vance Global’s original accountant was a two-man shop in Norwalk that had been absorbed into a larger firm in 2015, which meant the files had been boxed and moved and not destroyed.

Desmond Pilcher found the 2008 return in the third week of January.

The balance sheet on that return shows, under additional paid-in capital, two entries for the first year of that company’s life.