Save documents how long

Membership eligibility county list. Privacy policy California privacy statement. Boat loans Motorcycle loans RV loans. Credit and debt toolkit Financial education courses Financial Calculators Financial education resources Financial literacy Fraud protection Newsletters Teacher and parent resources. Until you have balanced your W2 at the end of the year. Seven years. Keep for less than a year. In this file, Weltman says to store your ATM, bank-deposit, and credit card receipts until you reconcile them with your monthly statements.

Keep insurance policies and investment statements until new ones arrive. Keep for a year or longer. Hold on to loan documents until the loan is paid off. That will often be for more than a year. If you own a car , hold on to the title until you sell it. If you have investments in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, for example, keep the purchase confirmations until you sell, so you can establish your cost basis and holding period, McBride says.

Keep for seven years. If you fail to report all of your gross income on your tax returns, the government has six years to collect the tax or start legal proceedings. To be on the safe side, McBride says to keep all tax records for at least seven years. Keep forever.

Records such as birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees, Social Security cards, and military discharge papers should be kept indefinitely. They help in preparing future tax returns and making computations if you file an amended return.

The following questions should be applied to each record as you decide whether to keep a document or throw it away. Generally, keep records relating to property until the period of limitations expires for the year in which you dispose of the property. You must keep these records to figure any depreciation, amortization, or depletion deduction and to figure the gain or loss when you sell or otherwise dispose of the property.

If you received property in a nontaxable exchange, your basis in that property is the same as the basis of the property you gave up, increased by any money you paid. You must keep the records on the old property, as well as on the new property, until the period of limitations expires for the year in which you dispose of the new property. When your records are no longer needed for tax purposes, do not discard them until you check to see if you have to keep them longer for other purposes.

For example, your insurance company or creditors may require you to keep them longer than the IRS does. More In File.