Paperwork from Rental Propery

[sarah12578]

Hi,
I sold a rental property last year, and I'm unclear what paperwork I need to hang onto.  Do I just need to keep the documents I turned into the accountant for taxes?  Those would be purchase and sold paperwork, and receipts for costs incurred while selling.   I also have stacks of original purchase paperwork, refinance paperwork (refi'd 2x when it was owner occupied by me), copies of leases, tenant communication, etc.   Is it necessary to hold onto all of this?  What do I need, and for how long? 

[thedayisbrave]

Yes, hold onto it at least until your 2016 taxes are filed. Also make sure you have the CD/HUD statement from the sale last year.

[SeattleCPA]

You need to hold on to the original purchase documents (since they document key bits of info about the original basis) and the sales documents (since they document the sales price) for a few years.

Think about it this way (and ignoring intervening years with their depreciation and possible suspended passive losses): On your 2016 return, you're going to use both the original purchase price from way back when and the sales price from 2016 in calculations of the gain or loss on your 2016 tax return.

Your 2016 tax return could be examined (audited) anytime up until April 15, 2020... so you'd want to keep this stuff until at least that long.

And note, too, that there are scenarios where the statute of limitations would stretch out more than three years from date you filed you return. So that's just a general rule.