1. Which of the below-listed 4 kinds of retirement plan financial and administrative records should be retained for a possible future IRS inquiry and which can be safely shredded now?

2. Once the retirement plan owners are deceased and their IRA plans’ assets have been
inherited by their beneficiaries, can all these records be safely shredded or which need to be retained by their beneficiaries?

3. Similarly, which of the plan owners’ income tax returns from 1987 on can be shredded now and which need to be retained after their deaths?

a. An M.D. employer adopted a prototype Defined Benefit Plan (DBP) effective 1/1/88 to cover himself and his 1 employee who was also his wife. On 12/7/93 the DBP assets were directly rolled over to a Vanguard money purchase pension plan (MPPP) into an account for the employer and into an account for the employee. The employer retired in 1994. On 1/19/99 the assets in the employee’s MPPP were directly rolled over to her Vanguard TIRA and on 2/4/02 the assets in the employer’s MPPP were directly rolled over to his Vanguard TIRA.

b. The employer and employee had contributed to Keogh profit sharing plans from 1963 through 1987 and again in 1994 when they retired. In 2009 Vanguard closed their Keogh plan and their assets were directly rolled over to their Vanguard TIRA’s.

c. They had also contributed mostly to non-Vanguard TIRA’s from 1982 through 1994 that were later all put in their Vanguard TIRA’s.

d. They Roth converted some of their Vanguard TIRA’s in 1998 and again in 2009 and filed Forms 8606.


Thank you for your help.