Information to gather for investment or rental income

Statements from your brokers

Collect the consolidated annual statement and transaction history from each provider you used. If you transferred an account between providers during the year, you will usually need statements from both.

Interest and dividend records

Keep the statements showing interest credited to you and dividends paid to you, including amounts that were automatically reinvested.

What you originally paid for an asset

Cost-basis records show what you paid for an asset, along with any adjustments. Your provider sometimes reports this and sometimes does not — particularly for older holdings or transferred accounts — so your own records can be important.

Rental income and expenses to gather

• Rent you received, by property and by period
• Amounts you paid for repairs, maintenance, insurance, management and similar items
• Records of when each property was available, occupied or used by you personally

Records about the property itself

Keep your purchase, sale and settlement documents, records of improvements you made, and information about how the property was treated in earlier years.

Amounts carried forward from earlier years

If amounts were carried forward from an earlier year, the schedules showing them are generally needed so that reporting stays consistent from year to year.