Paperwork questions

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Once upon a time people were told to keep bank statements for 7 years, does that still hold true?



Our investment adviser told me that we only need to keep the investment statements for 12 months, then get rid of them. guess who has a ton of shredding now.

[KayKay]

I keep things a lot longer than that.

It really depends what you use bank statements for, and what kind of electronic access you have. Some people who are self-employed might run income/expenses through their bank statements (when they deposit/withdraw) so would want to keep the bank statements as proof of income and expenses. OTOH, I don't even get hard copies of my bank statement anymore; I use online banking for that.

But investment statements? If there are purchases and sales in the account, keep them. That's crazy that an investment advisor would tell you to get rid of them. You need to have proof of cost for when you eventually sell the investment. You could reconstruct it with electronic records, but from my experience (doing tax returns) it's never exactly right.

https://www.consumerreports.org/taxe...tax-documents/

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