Question on old tax documents

Hello

Does anybody know for how long a taxpayer is supposed to keep the documentaion related to capital gain income tax etc.

I was tiding up some documentation yesterday and found some statements about the sale of a number of shares togther with the tax docuement related to the payment of the capital gain dated back to the year 2000 2001 and 2002. Is it safe to get rid of them or can a tax audit go back as far as the year 2000 hence it's better to keep all the documentation ?


Thanks a lot
Maples180

I thought that it was indefinite as to how far back Revenue could go? Although I seem to recall 8 years being mentioned somewhere (perhaps here)...

You must keep your records for 6 years unless Revenue advise you otherwise,see page 28 of this Revenue document (applies to businesses, but think it's the same for individuals) [broken link removed]

Thanks ClubMan and Recam. I will keep them a few more years then, to catch some more dust (-:

I was recently dealing with my mothers estate after she died. She had sold some shares shortly befor her death so I had to trace those back to their purchase date (1974) in order to calcuate the Capital Gains due.

I think it mught be wise to collect a lot more dust!

Nellie123 said:

I was recently dealing with my mothers estate after she died. She had sold some shares shortly befor her death so I had to trace those back to their purchase date (1974) in order to calcuate the Capital Gains due.

Click to expand...

This is a very common scenario. Apart altogether from Revenue rules etc, documents in relation to asset purchases should in general never be destroyed as long as the asset is still owned.