Tax Center
Record Retention Guide
How long to keep tax records, by the seven situations IRS Topic 305 actually sets out — plus the records tied to an asset that outlive every one of those windows.
Almost every version of this advice you will find online collapses into “keep everything for seven years.” That is not what the rule says, and the difference matters in both directions — some records you can let go of after three years, and some you should never throw away at all.
The periods below are the ones the IRS itself sets out. They are keyed to how long the agency has to examine a return, which is why a return you never filed has no clock at all.
| Situation | Keep records for |
|---|---|
| The ordinary case — you filed, you reported everything, none of the situations below apply | 3 years from the date you filed |
| You are filing a claim for a credit or refund after filing the return | 3 years from filing, or 2 years from the date you paid the tax — whichever is later |
| You did not report income you should have, and it was more than 25% of the gross income shown on the return | 6 years |
| You are claiming a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction | 7 years |
| You filed a fraudulent return | Indefinitely — there is no statute of limitations |
| You did not file a return at all | Indefinitely — the clock never starts |
| Employment tax records | At least 4 years after the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later |
The records that outlive those windows
The table above is about returns. Records tied to an asset follow the asset, not the return — keep them until the period of limitations runs out for the year you actually dispose of it. In practice that means:
- Your home. The closing statement, and every receipt for an improvement. Those add to your basis, and basis is what determines the gain when you sell — sometimes decades later. This is the single most commonly discarded category, and the most expensive one.
- Investments you still hold. Cost basis records, reinvested dividend records, and anything documenting a stock split or a transfer between brokerages. Brokers report basis on covered shares now, but older lots and transferred positions are frequently wrong or missing.
- Retirement accounts. Records of non-deductible IRA contributions (Form 8606 in particular). Without them you can end up paying tax twice on the same money.
- Business assets. Purchase records and depreciation schedules, until the asset is disposed of and that year's return has aged out.
- Anything involving a carryover. A capital loss, a passive activity loss, a charitable contribution carryforward — the supporting records need to survive as long as the carryover does, which can be many years.
Practically speaking
Storage is cheap and reconstruction is not. A scanned PDF is acceptable to the IRS, so there is no reason to keep paper past the point where you would rather not. What matters is that the records are organized by tax year and that you can actually find them under pressure — a notice arrives with a response deadline printed on it, and that is a bad moment to be searching an inbox.
My clients’ documents live in the portal, filed by tax year, with a record of what was uploaded and when. That is deliberate: the point of the vault is not storage, it is being able to answer a question about 2022 in about a minute. More on how that works.
Source: IRS Topic No. 305, Recordkeeping. Verify current guidance at IRS.gov. State record retention rules can differ from federal ones, and some states have a longer examination window.
Read out of IRS Topic No. 305 in September 2026. These do not change with the tax year. If you are relying on one, confirm it at the source.
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