How Long to Keep Tax Records, and the File Your Family Will Need

At least three years after filing for an ordinary return, and seven years is the safer rule for anything that supports a return. The IRS ties record-keeping to its period of limitations, the time it has to assess more tax and you have to claim a refund. Its own list reads (IRS):

The clock starts when you file, but a return filed early is treated as filed on its due date. A 2025 return filed in March 2026 is treated as filed on April 15, 2026, so its ordinary window closes on April 15, 2029, and the seven-year window on April 15, 2033. The IRS also reminds you that an insurer or lender may want records longer than it does, and many states give their revenue departments a longer window than the federal three years; check your state before you shred.

Two points get lost in most summaries. First, the periods apply to the supporting records: receipts, statements, forms and worksheets. The IRS separately tells you to keep copies of the returns themselves, because they help with future returns and amended ones (IRS). Second, property records follow a different clock entirely. Anything showing what you paid for an asset must be kept until the period of limitations expires for the year you dispose of it (IRS Tax Topic 305). For a house bought in 1994 and sold in 2026, that means records from 1994 are needed until at least 2030.

If a return is lost, the IRS can supply only part of it. A tax return transcript covers the current and three prior years; account transcripts and wage-and-income transcripts go back nine prior years online (IRS). A full photocopy of the return, attachments included, costs $30 on Form 4506 and is available for the current year and up to seven years back (IRS). A transcript will not show the Form 8606 detail or the purchase history behind an old gain, so your own copies are the record that counts.

The ones that prove money was already taxed, or show what you paid. After 60, these are worth more than any receipt, because the amounts are large and the paper is old.

• •Cost basis on old investments. Brokers must report your cost only for "covered" securities: stock bought after 2010, and mutual fund or dividend-reinvestment shares bought after 2011. For anything bought earlier, you determine the date and cost from your own records (IRS). If you hold a fund you started buying in the 1990s, the reinvested dividends each added basis; lose the records and you may pay tax on money that was already taxed. Keep them until seven years after the return reporting the sale.
• •Home purchase and improvement records. Improvements that add value or prolong the home's life, such as an addition, a new roof, central air or a renovated kitchen, increase your basis; repairs such as painting and fixing leaks do not (IRS Publication 523). The exclusion on a home sale is $250,000, or $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, and a surviving spouse can still claim $500,000 on a sale within two years of the death if not remarried. Above those amounts, every documented improvement lowers the tax. Our guide to downsizing in retirement works through the sale itself.
• •Form 8606 and its companions. If you ever made nondeductible IRA contributions, the IRS tells you to keep the Forms 8606, the pages of your Form 1040 for those years, Forms 5498 showing contributions, and Forms 1099-R for distribution years, until all distributions are made (IRS Instructions for Form 8606). That can be 40 years or more, and when an IRA passes to heirs, they need the same paper to avoid paying tax twice. It also matters for anyone doing Roth conversions before RMDs, since basis changes the taxable share of every conversion.
• •Gift tax returns. Gifts above $19,000 per recipient in 2026 require a Form 709 and reduce the lifetime exclusion, $15,000,000 per person in 2026. Your executor needs every Form 709 you ever filed to work out the estate tax, so keep them permanently. See gifting to children and grandchildren.
• •Values of what you inherited. Inherited property generally takes as its basis the fair market value on the date of death, or on the alternate valuation date if the estate elected it on a Form 706 (IRS). Keep the appraisal or date-of-death statement until seven years after you sell.
• •Your Social Security earnings record. An earnings record can normally be corrected only up to three years, three months and 15 days after the year the wages were paid, with some exceptions (SSA Handbook §1423). Download it from my Social Security once a year while you are still working, and keep the last one. Our guide on when to claim Social Security explains why the record sets your benefit.
• •Pension documents. Keep the summary plan description, annual benefit statements, your election forms and any spousal consent. Plans merge, companies are sold, and plans end; a plan you cannot document can be hard to claim. If a former employer's plan has vanished, search the PBGC's unclaimed benefits database (PBGC) and the Labor Department's Retirement Savings Lost and Found (DOL). For the lump sum or annuity choice itself, see pension lump sum vs. annuity.
• •Beneficiary designations. For IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities and life insurance, the beneficiary form on file with the institution decides who inherits, not the will. Keep the confirmation of the current designation, and check it after every marriage, divorce, death or birth. Estate planning basics shows how these accounts pass outside probate.
• •Insurance and legal originals. Life, long-term care and annuity contracts while in force; wills, trusts, powers of attorney and health care directives; deeds, titles, marriage and divorce records, and military discharge papers. A divorce decree matters for Social Security if you were married ten years or more.

This is the table to print and tape inside the filing cabinet. "7 years after filing" covers every ordinary IRS window, so we use it instead of three; the cost of keeping a folder four more years is small.

Periods are federal. State tax departments, insurers and lenders can require longer; when in doubt, keep. This schedule is general information, not legal or tax advice for your situation.

Ask what the paper proves. If it supports a return, it follows the return's window. If it shows what you paid for something, it follows the asset. If it proves a right, keep it for life.

There is no IRS rule for bank statements as such; what matters is whether a statement supports something on a return. Tax Topic 305 says to keep records such as receipts and canceled checks that support income, a deduction or a credit until the period of limitations for that return expires (IRS). In practice:

• •Monthly bank and card statements: keep a year, until the year-end statement has arrived and you have checked it. Keep longer only the statements that show a deductible payment, an estimated tax payment, or a purchase under warranty or dispute. Most banks let you download several years of statements, which makes paper copies redundant.
• •Brokerage monthly statements and trade confirmations: once a year-end statement and Form 1099-B are in hand, the monthlies can go. Trade confirmations for noncovered shares are the exception; they are basis records and follow the asset.
• •Year-end statements and every 1099: file them with that year's return and keep seven years.
• •Charitable gifts: for any single contribution of $250 or more, you need the charity's written acknowledgment to deduct it (IRS Publication 526). For qualified charitable distributions from an IRA, keep the acknowledgment and the IRA statement showing the payment went directly to the charity.
• •Medical bills and insurance premiums: keep them with the return if you itemize medical expenses, which becomes more common with assisted living or long-term care costs. The IRS also asks you to keep records of health coverage (IRS).
• •Utility and routine bills: shred once the next bill shows the payment, unless they support a deduction.

Richard is 72 and Anne is 69. They have $2.6 million: $1.4 million in traditional IRAs, $900,000 in a taxable brokerage account that includes fund shares bought in the 1990s, and $300,000 in Roth IRAs. They live in a common-law state in a house bought in 1994 for $310,000, now worth about $1,100,000, and plan to move closer to their daughter. The basement holds four banker's boxes of paper, and Anne wants them gone.

The house. Over 32 years they made three improvements that count toward basis. The receipts are in one of those boxes.

Had Richard died before the sale, the answer would change. In a common-law state, the half of a jointly owned house that Richard owned would take a new basis at its date-of-death value, and Anne could still claim the $500,000 exclusion if she sold within two years and had not remarried (IRS Publication 523). The receipts would still matter for Anne's half. Community property states follow different rules; an estate attorney or CPA should confirm the basis after a death.

The IRA. From 1988 to 2003, Anne made nondeductible IRA contributions of $2,000 a year, $32,000 in all. Her traditional IRA is now worth $640,000, so about 5% of it is after-tax money. Under the pro rata rule, roughly that share of each withdrawal comes out tax-free: about $2,000 of a $40,000 withdrawal (the exact figure depends on the year-end balance). Without her Forms 8606, the whole withdrawal is taxed. At a 24% rate, losing the forms would cost $7,680 of tax over her lifetime or her heirs'. The forms are in the same box.

What they shred. Supporting records for the 2018 return and earlier, whose seven-year windows closed by April 2026; decades of monthly bank and card statements; old utility bills; statements for accounts closed long ago, after checking nothing on them relates to a still-held asset. What they keep:every filed return, the house file, Anne's 8606 folder, the brokerage purchase history for the 1990s fund shares, Richard's pension election with Anne's spousal consent, and their Forms 709 from gifts to their grandchildren. Four boxes become one drawer.

Everything someone else would need to run your finances for a month without asking you. The test is simple: if you were in hospital tomorrow, could your spouse or executor pay the bills, find every account and reach every adviser? A good handover file is one binder, or one encrypted folder, with six parts.

Digital access needs setting up now, not describing later. A password manager with an emergency-access or family feature lets a named person reach the vault after a waiting period you set. On an Apple account, you can add a Legacy Contact under Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security, Legacy Contact. After your death that person needs the access key generated when you added them and a death certificate; they get photos, messages, notes, files and backups, but not the iCloud Keychain passwords or payment information (Apple), and access lasts three years from the first approved request (Apple). Google's Inactive Account Manager lets you choose up to ten people to receive your data, or a notice, after a period of inactivity you set, and Google may delete accounts inactive for two years (Google).

The estate planning worksheet collects the legal side (documents, fiduciaries, beneficiaries) in the same order an attorney will ask for it. For what a surviving spouse claims from Social Security, including the $255 lump-sum death payment that must be applied for within 2 years, see Social Security survivor benefits.

A letter of instruction is a plain-language letter to your executor and family explaining what they will find and what you would like done. It is not a legal document and does not override your will or beneficiary forms, which is exactly why it can be informal, specific and updated whenever you like. Keep it with the handover file and give your executor a copy or tell them where it is.

• •Who to call first: the executor, the estate attorney, the CPA, and anyone who should hear the news from family rather than a notice.
• •Where things are: a short map to the handover file, the originals, the safe deposit box and any storage unit or second home.
• •Income that will stop or change: Social Security, each pension and whether it has a survivor benefit, annuity payments, required minimum distributions, and which accounts need beneficiary claims.
• •Bills to keep paying, and those to cancel: insurance on the house and cars must continue; subscriptions and memberships can stop.
• •Tax matters: where the last three returns are, whether estimated tax is paid quarterly, any Forms 8606 or 709, and the name of the preparer. The final individual return is due on the usual date the year after death (IRS Publication 559).
• •Personal wishes: funeral preferences, the people who should receive particular possessions if not named in the will, pets, and anything your family would otherwise have to guess.

Review it every January, when the tax papers are fresh, and after any move, marriage, death or new account. If your affairs are complex, ask your estate attorney to read it once so nothing in it conflicts with the will.

Shred anything past its date in the schedule that carries a Social Security number, account number, signature or date of birth. Recycle the rest. A cross-cut or micro-cut shredder is enough at home; for a basement full of boxes, community shred days and bonded shredding services handle the volume and give you a certificate of destruction.

• •Shred once a year, after you file. The easiest routine: when this year's return goes in, shred the supporting records for the year whose seven-year window has just closed.
• •Scan before you shred if you are unsure. A scanned copy is fine for most records; keep scans in two places, such as an encrypted drive and a cloud account, and name files by year and type.
• •Wipe devices, not just paper. Old phones, computers and printers with hard drives hold tax returns and statements; reset and wipe them before giving them away.

Two free steps block most of the damage a stolen identity can do: an IRS Identity Protection PIN and credit freezes at the three bureaus.

• •IRS Identity Protection PIN. Anyone with a Social Security number or ITIN who can verify their identity can get one; it keeps anyone else from filing a return under your number. The IRS issues a new PIN each year, valid for one calendar year, and the fastest route is your IRS online account (IRS). Each spouse enrolls separately. Give the PIN to your preparer each year, because an e-filed return is rejected without it.
• •Credit freezes. Freezing your file at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion costs nothing, lasts until you lift it, and does not affect your credit score (FTC). Most retirees rarely open new credit, so a freeze costs little. Record the PINs or logins for lifting each freeze in the handover file. If you have already been a victim of identity theft, an extended fraud alert lasts seven years.
• •After a death. Send each credit bureau a copy of the death certificate and ask for a deceased alert on the credit report, watch the reports for unusual activity, and keep identifying details out of the obituary (IRS). Order more certified death certificates than you think you need; banks, insurers and brokers each want one.
• •Unclaimed money. Search the state unclaimed property databases, free through the official state programs and MissingMoney, for forgotten accounts (NAUPA). Anyone who contacts you offering to recover it for a fee deserves suspicion.

Widows and widowers are frequent targets of fraud in the months after a death, when mail and calls increase and judgment is under strain. Our guide to investment scam red flags covers the common approaches, including callers claiming to be from the IRS or Social Security.

• •Shredding basis records on the seven-year rule. The seven years run from the return that reports the sale, not from the purchase. A 1990s trade confirmation for shares you still own is current.
• •Throwing out Forms 8606 because the contributions were decades ago. They matter until the last IRA dollar is out, including after the IRA passes to heirs.
• •Counting the window from January. It runs from the filing date or due date, whichever is later, and a return filed late starts its clock only when it is filed.
• •Keeping everything. Boxes of monthly statements hide the few papers that matter and leave more account numbers to steal.
• •Putting passwords in the will. A probated will can become public. Use emergency access in a password manager instead.