I have all the related-party documents in Google Drive, but they are messy. Does that still satisfy the Form 5472 record rule?
Nothing is truly missing, but the file structure is chaotic. Wires, invoices, owner reimbursements, and intercompany agreements are all in the same broad folders, and I am now realizing that retrieval may be the real weakness even though the documents technically exist. That makes me nervous because I do not know whether the IRS would see this as 'records maintained' or as a mess that fails the practical standard.
I am trying to understand whether recordkeeping for Form 5472 is mostly about possession or whether organization and retrievability matter enough that I should rebuild the archive before I rely on it. I would rather hear the uncomfortable answer now than discover it during a dispute.
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