Pension Records, Statute?

At the time if they were treated as distributions, does that mean the employer sent 1099's for them? If so, I'd say the employee was put on notice years ago, didn't do anything about it then, so it's his problem now.

That's general law, not tax law.

___ Stu

Try this:

Thanks. That link helps and confirms what I thought. I've been telling folks 6 - 10 years should be sufficient. And it is in general. But it looks like the individual account records should be kept longer. I would suppose for as long as they participate, and for 6 years after they've been paid out.

And Stuart, yes, the 1099-R's were filed and given to the participant in each of the years there was a distribution, so says the prior CPA.

My guess is that they've burned through their distribution and somehow think that there is more to be had by claiming they never received those prior year distributions. That's probably why they want to see the canceled checks.

The thing you have to watch out for are former employees who are vested when they separated from employment. The last you thing you want is a surviving spouse with old payroll stubs filing for survivor benefits when there are none because the balance had been distributed many years ago and you have no records to substantiate the distribution.

"Alan" wrote

I'll keep that in mind. But the reality is that, like with the client who closed out their pension plan and has now closed the business with the owners "retiring" to bluer pastures (the coast) there's just so long you can keep records before they're lost to time and shuffling. I told them 10 years should suffice. Reality is vastly different from ideal.