Get your taxes done using TurboTax

On  your 2020 tax return you will enter the recharacterization when you enter the contribution to the Roth IRA:

1. Login to your TurboTax Account 
2. Click on "Search" on the top right and type “IRA contributions”
3. Click on “Jump to IRA contributions"
4. Select “Roth IRA”
5. Answer “No” to “Is This a Repayment of a Retirement Distribution
6. Enter the Roth contribution amount 
7. Answer “Yes” to the recharacterized question on the “Did You Change Your Mind?” screen and enter the contribution amount (no earnings or losses)
8. TurboTax will ask for an explanation statement where it should be stated that the original $xxx.xx plus $xxx.xx earnings (or loss) were recharacterized.
9. On the screen "Choose Not to Deduct IRA Contributions" answer "Yes" (If you have a retirement plan at work and are over the income limit it will be nondeductible and you only get a screen saying $0 is deductible)

Next year on your 2021 tax return you will report the nondeductible contribution to the traditional IRA:

1. Login to your TurboTax Account 
2. Click on "Search" on the top right and type “IRA contributions”
3. Click on “Jump to IRA contributions"
4. Select “traditional IRA”
5. Answer “No” to “Is This a Repayment of a Retirement Distribution?”
6. Enter the amount you contributed
7. Answer “No” to the recharacterized question on the “Did You Change Your Mind?” screen
8. Answer the next questions until you get to “Any Nondeductible Contributions to Your IRA?” and select “Yes” since you had a nondeductible contributions before this tax year.
9. Enter the basis
10. On the “Choose Not to Deduct IRA Contributions” screen choose “Yes, make part of my IRA contribution nondeductible” and enter the amount.

To enter the 1099-R distribution/conversion: 

1. Click on "Search" on the top right and type “1099-R”
2. Click on “Jump to 1099-R”
3. Click "Continue" and enter the information from your 1099-R
4. Answer questions until you get to “Tell us if you moved the money through a rollover or conversion” and choose “I converted some or all of it to a Roth IRA”
5. On the "Your 1099-R Entries" screen click "continue"
6. Answer "yes" to "Any nondeductible Contributions to your IRA?" if you had any nondeductible contributions in prior years.
7. Answer the questions about the basis and value

The 2021 1099-R with code R in box 7 for the recharacterization belongs on the 2020 return but you can ignore it because a 1099-R with code R will not do anything to your return. You can only report it as mentioned above.