@KREC wrote:
a few more questions.
1. am I correct to assume that I cannot obtain any tax return documents such as 1040s and 8 606s that go back 16 years or longer?
2. without being able to obtain those very old returns, I have no way of knowing if there is an 8606 to correct for that year (or whether I took it as a deductible contribution), so do I start with whichever year I do have returns for and supporting documentation and use that as my starting point to track basis and and exclude the unknown information possibilities from the prior years?
thanks
1. The IRS can only provide copies of tax returns for 7 years, and transcripts (an electronic summary) for 10 years.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc156
2. You can only claim what you can prove if audited. You will need to get your tax transcripts and IRA records together and compare them. You will need to match contributions to your tax return, determine if you took a tax deduction or not, and whether or not you filed form 8606 (and if it was correct or not). Whatever is the earliest year you can prove everything, you go forward from there and whatever happened before that is lost.
