Concerning mineral royalties paid to me (the Mineral Owner), how long should I keep the Royalty Payment Statements (containing info for various producing leases such as date of production sale, price of production sold, Gross Value, Owner Decimal Interest, Deductions (such as taxes, expenses, as may pertain) Net Value paid to me as Mineral Owner, etc…….) that pertain to each royalty payment?
I’ve kept copies of prints statements, some going back 40+ years, long before these statements were sent electronically. I’d like to clear out the space these are taking up.
Any rules of thumb (such as keep statements going back a certain number of years, then toss the rest, etc….) as to how long these types of statements should be kept by the Mineral Owner?
What, if any, information should I first take from these statements before throwing them out? (Example: Do I need to invest the extensive time it would take to create a spread sheet containing each property name, the Operator’s name {and the first and last dates of payments received from each operator of each property?} as an historical reference? Any other info that should be kept?) Or can I simple just toss these printed statements that are older than a certain date?
These statements pertain to royalties paid in Texas and Wyoming.
Thoughts, advice, methods of archiving any info that should be retained, etc. would be appreciated.
Our accountant has said seven years for IRS purposes. We keep ours for ten years just because that is easier to remember. What we started doing about 12 years ago was scanning them all and then getting rid of the paper. We scan and back up in the cloud, so do not lose them from a computer getting stolen or dying.
I have two sets of files. 1) is yearly income and IRS returns. 2) Is anything related to investments for cost basis. I have every receipt for upgrades to my home. Anything that I bought for my business that hasn’t been completely deducted from my income. If an asset has been completely expensed, I put it in that years IRS box. If I sell an asset, I put it in that box. I write the tax year on that box. Each year I shred out the oldest box.
One important thing is to scan copies of any of those thermo receipts…
Back when Obama’s IRS attacked the Tea party members I got audited. Many of those old receipts had faded and couldn’t be read. It cost me a lot of money. 10 grand of lost expenses, created an 3300 tax bill and then interest and penalties doubled the bill. Times that for 3 years off blank receipts and it was quite the hit.