Where can I find documentation of my employer's 401k contribution?

[pahy96]

I have been going through my tax documents to identify how much I've contributed to my retirement account, but I realized my W-2 only shows my contributions but not my employer match. Unfortunately, I don't recall what my match percentage was with previous employers.

Is there a way to track down how much my employer contributed to my retirement accounts?

Ultimately, after multiple 401k and 403b rollovers and now with an IRA, I'm trying to get a gauge on what I've contributed vs. what I've earned over the years. Knowing what employers contributed is a big piece to that puzzle.

[SteamTrain]

My 401k plan used to send out yearly statements showing the various amounts contributed.

With some plans, they transitioned to electronic records where you logged into your online account to see & download those amounts.   

If you've since, rolled over those amounts to other accounts, and no longer have an online account with that 401k provider.....then it may be difficult to impossible to recover the value of those matching contributions.

You could check your paper files to see if you have any paperwork about that 401k plan that show what % the employer matched...or if you know anyone still working at that employer, ask them to check to see what the match is.   IF you get that, you might be able to approximate what the match $$ was by getting out your old W-2 forms from that employer to see what amounts you contributed each year, and calculating what the employer match might have been from those $$ amounts.....thought he calculation wouldn't be straightforward.......it would give you an idea of what the employer provided each year.

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

The only places that this information would be available would be in statements from your employer plans and possibly supplemental information on paystubs from these employers.  

Although you might be curious how much employers contributed as the employer matching contributions for the purpose of determining investment performance over the years, that information has no bearing on determining the taxable amount of any distributions from your IRA.  You might just consider employer contributions as being a part of your investment performance since you would not have received employer matching contributions had you invested the money elsewhere.

[Opus 17]

The only place that will have that information is the plan administrator (or administrators).  They might have sent you annual statements; they might have statements online; you might have to call them if the accounts are so old that the statements are no longer online. 

Of course, for income tax purposes, it doesn't matter where the contributions came from, as long as we are talking about a traditional pre-tax 401(k).