How Long It Is Necessary To Keep A Pay Stub?

Documentation is the most important thing in today’s world but it always leads to the pile up of different papers. It is such a hard thing to decide that which paper work has to be saved or which one has to be thrown in the trash. Similar is the case with the paycheck stubs. It is important to keep these pay stubs save for some time before throwing them. It contains your financial information but when you receive the summary of your financial details at the end of the year this pay stub doesn’t matter at all then.

So, when it is all about the pay stubs then it is important to at least keep them for a year. Whether you keep them in the digital form or in the hard copy form save it. Moreover, these pay stubs also help the employees in the verification of the form W2 accuracy that is provided by the company at the end of the year.

Other things such as annual tax return must also be filed away and they must also be kept for 7 years minimum. This is due to the reason that the IRS carries a time period of 7 years for audit conductance. This is the time when your paycheck stubs help you a lot as the income which is low reported carries higher penalty when it is audit time.

Most of the people get confused very easily that how they will get the old pay stubs when they are going to buy new property. Here is a thing to remember when one person plans to buy home that it is highly important for them to keep their pay stubs for two months period but the most recommended time is the seven months. Lenders usually request for these records. You can throw off some other documents including medical bills, utility bills, credit cards and bank statements. But, if you find them useful in the tax file then keep them as a record for seven years too.