Did I screw up my retirement savings? Roth 401k changed...

[Ben S.]

Most all of my 401k investments have been after tax contributions which I think went to a roth 401k and I have been at 5-6 jobs in my 21 years of my career. I've nearly always chosen after tax contributions because I would rather be taxed now then at retirement when I take it out. Since then I've transferred my retirement funds to many different investment firms and finally I've put about half into forgetrust.com so I could invest in a syndication but it is showing up as a Contributory Traditional IRA which to me seems like a before tax fund?

Did I screw up somewhere or did one of my many moves to investment firms cause this?

For example, I know my very first career job I contributed about 80 percent of the retirement funds to after-tax contributions which I would think would be something like a Roth 401k. Then I moved that to UBS which tracked all of those same funds as SEP IRA or Simplified Employee Pension account type. Then I move the funds to TransAmerica, then to Edward Jones, then to this self-directed IRA for the syndication investment.

I don't understand at all how I am supposed to track what funds are before-tax contributions and what funds are after-tax contributions.

Can someone help me understand how I can make sense of all of this?  Or who I can go to to make sense of this?  I've asked my accountant but didn't really get much help there.

[Steven Hamilton II]

Simply let them know that those were after tax funds it may have been an error at account set up. 

You may have some significant tracking issues that need to be cleaned up. there is no Roth or after tax SEP. You will need to get the ENTIRE paper trail to make sure this is fixed. Keep in mind employer matches and contributions from an employer to a SEP are traditional contributions. 

[Ben S.]

@Steven Hamilton II Why do I have a feeling of being scammed out of my retirement funds? How does this happen I have hired professionals to take care of my retirement and it appears to be Beyond screwed up possibly to a point of no return. I have tried calling UBS and they tell me that they don't keep records back that far. How do I create the paper trail if these companies don't keep these records?

[Basit Siddiqi]

@Ben S.

401K contribution amounts are also broken down on your W-2's that you get at the end of the year with your employer.
You may potentially use that as a paper-trail.

If you don't have all your W-2's going back that far, you can potentially request a transcript from the IRS.