What to keep for three years
When referring to income-related documents, the years add up. This three-year period applies to the following:
- Forms that display capital gains, income, dividends, and interest on investments;
- Income reporting forms (W-2);
- In case you deducted mortgage interest, it also applies to 1098 forms;
- Records that confirm contributions to a retirement savings plan that’s deductible (a traditional IRA for example);
- Canceled checks and receipts for charitable contributions;
- Records that show medical costs or other charges.
However, if you don’t deduct charitable contributions, there’s no need for you to keep those receipts and canceled checks.
Next, what about for six years?…..
2 thoughts on “How Long Do I Need to Keep My Tax Records?”
I ran into a situation where I should have hung onto my pay records from 1988 (over 31 years ago). Reason: applied for social security disability. They claimed the year amount I made was wrong but I couldn’t prove otherwise which made my monthly payments smaller. Since then I came across a paper where I owed taxes for that year and had made payment to IRS each month for that year. So my opinion is the original amount was correct and they should owe me more each month.
I suggest keeping pay info such as w-2’s for life or until a person is on social security or in my case disability.
My husband, who has passed away, kept all of our tax paperwork for 40 years. I am going to moving into a much smaller house and would have to rent a storage facility to keep all that I currently have. So, I plan to deep 10 years worth of my tax filing information.