How can I find a lost 401K from a past employer?
The Employee Benefits Security Administration within the US Department of Labor is tasked with keeping track of pension and 401K programs. The even have a website to search for abandoned plans: it helps participants and others find out whether a particular plan is in the process of being, or has been, terminated and the name of the Qualified Termination Administrator (QTA) responsible for the termination.  The Employee Benefits Security Administration discuss all types of details regarding retirement programs. This document What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan has a lot of details including this: If your former employer has gone out of business, arrangements should   have been made so a plan official remains responsible for the payment   of benefits and other plan business. If you are entitled to benefits   and are unable to contact the plan administrator, contact EBSA   electronically at askebsa.dol.gov or by calling toll free at   1-866-444-3272. There are also EBSA offices spread thought the United States
If they leave the extra funds in the account the IRS will consider it as employer match. They weren't funds from your paycheck, they were from the employers profits. Because they don't have a formal matching program the extra funds will still keep then under the max match.  There is one other explanation that needs to be considered. If the last paycheck from 2011 was near the end of the year (the last Friday of 2011 was December 30th) the 401K funds from that final paycheck may not have been deposited into your 401K until early January 2012. If you count contributions when looking at your 401K statement it will look like one two many for 2012; but the IRS only cares when it was deducted from your paycheck, not when it was deposited into your account. The Department of Labor only requires they be deposited by the 15th of the following month. Reinvestment creates a nightmare when it comes time to do taxes, sadly. Tons of annoying little transactions that happened automatically... Here's one article trying to answer your question: http://www.smartmoney.com/personal-finance/taxes/figuring-out-your-cost-basis-when-youve-lost-the-statements-9529/ You could also try this thing: http://www.gainskeeper.com/us/BasisProIndividual.aspx But I couldn't tell you if it would help. If it makes you feel better, brokerages are now required by the IRS to track your basis for you, so for new transactions and assets you shouldn't end up in this situation. Doesn't help with the old stuff ;-) "The IRS has a FAQ page about Hardship Distributions from a 401(k). The IRS defines a hardship in this case as ""an immediate and heavy financial need of the employee and the amount must be necessary to satisfy the financial need.""  Included in the list of examples is ""certain expenses for the repair of damage to the employee's principal residence.""  However, whether your former employer allows this particular reason is up to their plan documents.  It sounds like, from what you described on the website, that your plan does include this reason as a possibility for you. Next, you need to decide if the projects you have in mind qualify as ""repair of damage.""  This uses the same rules as the deductible casualty rules found in IRS Publication 547, which defines a casualty this way: A casualty is the damage, destruction, or loss of property resulting from an identifiable event that is sudden, unexpected, or unusual. A sudden event is one that is swift, not gradual or progressive. An unexpected event is one that is ordinarily unanticipated and unintended. An unusual event is one that is not a day-to-day occurrence and that is not typical of the activity in which you were engaged. Examples are given in Pub 547.  If the projects you have in mind are necessary due to an event (like a flood or a fire), it might be allowed.  But most ""home improvement"" projects would not qualify for this. If you'd like a way to simplify your financial profile, an option for you, since you no longer work at this employer, is to roll over this 401(k) into a Rollover (traditional) IRA.  This way, you won't have to deal with your former employer anymore.  You could pick an IRA custodian that you already have another account with, if you like, and reduce the number of statements that you get.  But the IRA will not let you take money out without penalty for home improvement projects, either." Yes, there are checks and balances.  Employers can be, and have been, prosecuted for failing to pay super before the statutory timeline, which is three months from the pay date. However, it is still in your interests to check for yourself.  The most common point for missing super to be discovered is when the company goes broke, at which point it's too late for you.  What you should do is  Check on your payslips that the right amount is allocated to super.  It should be 9% of gross, plus any salary sacrifice or additional component. Check your super fund's half-yearly statements line up the deductions given on your payslip. Consider getting online access to your super account so you can check more quickly. If something is missing, call your super fund and/or payroll office. Resources: In general you cannot. Once the security is no longer listed on the exchange - it doesn't have to provide information to the exchange and regulators (unless it wants to be re-listed). That's one of the reasons companies go private - to keep their (financial and other) information private. If it was listed in 1999, and is no longer listed now - you can dig through SEC archives for the information. You can try and reach out to the company's investors' relations contact and see if they can help you with the specific information you're looking for. No, unvested money returns to the employer, its not yours. They should send you W2 which will only show the actual (vested) monies you got. You are already doing everything you can. If your employer does not have a 401(k) you are limited to investing in a Roth or a traditional IRA (Roth is post tax money, traditional IRA gives you a deduction so it is essentially pre tax money).  The contribution limits are the same for both and contributing to either adds to the limit (so you can't duplicate). CNN wrote an article on some other ways to save: One thing you may want to bring up with your employer is that they could set up a SEP-IRA.  This allows them to set a % (up to 25%) that they contribute pre-tax to an IRA for everyone at the company that has worked there at least 3 years.  If you are at a small company, maybe everyone with that kind of seniority would take an equivalent pay cut to get the automatic retirement contribution?  (Note that a SEP-IRA has to apply to everyone equally percentage wise that has worked there for 3 years, and the employer makes the contribution, not you). A company as large as Home Depot will have a fairly robust Human Resources department and would probably be able to steer you in the right direction: odds are they know the name of the brokerage and other particulars. I did some googling around, their # is  (1-866-698-4347). Different states have different rules about how long an institution can have assets abandoned before turning them over to the state. California, as an example, has an abandoned property search site that you can use.  That being said, I had some penny stocks sitting in a brokerage account I never touched for about 20 years and when I finally logged back in there they were, still sitting there. The old school way would have been to identify some wealthy zip codes and cold call like a mofo.  At present I would prefer to find some retiring advisor and buy his book (that may mean leaving your current firm). "I'm not sure what you mean by ""receive retirement benefits"". If the company had a 401k, that probably is the retirement plan. Few companies have both a 401k and an old-style pension plan, you typically have one or the other. So if your 401k was rolled over into some other account, you have already received your retirement benefits. If you mean that the 401k was rolled over into an IRA and you are asking if you can now start withdrawing from the IRA, see Excel Strategies answer. Short answer: Yes you can, but there's a 10% penalty unless you meet one of the exceptions." I work for a hedge fund, not wealth management, but I assume that client information is treated similarly. Misplacing it is a huge deal. The company will probably need to formally investigate it and inform all the clients involved. Even if they can prove that no one looked at the information it's going to make clients question the company's procedures. I could see it being a firing offense,depending on how many clients were affected and the nature of the data. Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear. Take The 20k and transfer it to the new employer 401k. You then can take a loan and accomplish the same thing. By the time you pay the tax and 10% penalty, that withdrawal will be worth just over half. The same half you can borrow out, pay yourself the interest and not lose out on 50 years of growth. Most companies put the company match in your account each paycheck, but your are not generally vested for the match. If you leave before the specified time period then they pull back part of the matching funds.  I knew somebody who did something similar back in the 1980's with their 401K. They put in 8% of their paycheck after taxes; a 100% match was deposited; then they pulled out the employees contribution every quarter. They did this for the 10 years I knew them. It avoided any tax implications, and they were still saving 8% of their pay for retirement. "(Insert usual disclaimer that I'm just a random guy on the Internet, not any kind of certified tax professional.) But once I withdraw the money, how is that money taxable? If I'm understanding your situation correctly, you want to look at the instructions for form 8889, under Excess Employer Contributions. It simply says, ""If the excess was not included in income on Form W-2, you must report it as 'Other income' on your tax return."" There doesn't look to be any particular wording beyond that, so I'd just put it on Form 1040 Line 21 Other Income, and label the line really specifically like ""Excess Employer Contributions distributed from HSA"". Also there is no mention of whether any FICA taxes (social security and Medicare) apply to these amounts. You say that this was entirely contributed by the employer. But even for cases where one contributes directly through payroll with an optional pre-tax deduction, this is usually implemented as a ""salary reduction agreement"" where the company is actually paying less money in salary (and thus less showing up on the W-2) and just contributing to the HSA account instead. It's listed on the 8889 as an ""Employer Contribution"", even if in fact one sees it as a deduction on one's pay stub. In either case, since the company didn't pay you the money as salary (and merely contributed to the HSA instead), I wouldn't expect any FICA taxes to be owed on it. The fact that the IRS wants it listed under ""Other income"" instead of ""Wages"" also implies to me that it doesn't count as salary that needs FICA taxes. Presumably, if people abused this in some way (like getting their employer to deliberately over-contribute each year and getting a refund in some sort of crazy scheme to try to reduce their SS taxes) the government would get rather upset and probably call it some sort of tax evasion. But for the amounts involved here, particularly as you're following the instructions listed, I just wouldn't worry about it. Assuming that I withdraw excess contribution and report everything on Form 8889 and Form 1040, is there any further action required from my previous employer? It's your HSA, so I wouldn't think so. Since the eligibility for HSAs is based on what you do, and not what they do (you could, for instance, get covered by a different HDHP and they wouldn't be notified nor really care), I don't think they have anything more to do with it. Also I am not sure how to calculate amount of interest attributable to excess contribution. I have only around $0.20 of total interest this year. The bank holding the HSA could probably help with that, as I'd expect it to be a normal part of the excess contribution withdrawal process. If not, I'd just make a reasonable effort based on the interest rate, amount involved, and number of days that the excess was in the account. Also keep in mind that in general when filing taxes, anything under $0.49 can round to $0. At some point, one can only be ""as honest as the law allows""." In the long run the drivers are getting pulled from the equation.  I don't care how much regulatory pressure the self driving car industry faces, they'll have it figured out in 5 years. You are talking about an interest group that includes Google, Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Ford, GM and probably Apple. They are all spending billions on the technology and want a return on that investment.