Thank you so much for the explanation I appreciate it. Please bare with me as I'm trying to understand this complicated issue at least it's to me.
"Mixing pre-tax (deductible) and after-tax (non-deductible) contributions in a traditional IRA has some complications and paperwork issues that you need to know about." - I have this issue and contributed for years as I was informed I could make contributions but lately realized I been mixing pre-tax and after-tax and have form 8606 for after-tax contributions and now decided to stop putting after-tax contributions since I was not contributing the much.
"Instead, if you already made a non-deductible contribution to a traditional IRA, you could reverse that and contribute to a Roth instead (that is called recharacterizing, and you would have your broker do that for you). Then you could contribute additional funds directly to the Roth IRA." - Can you please explain this a little cause when I asked the broker he said I can't do it now and will need an employer 401k to do backdoor Roth IRA. Are you saying I can open a stand alone Roth IRA now or maybe later next year and transfer all the after-tax contributions I made to the Traditional IRA over the year to a Roth IRA now without a backdoor.
What will be the easiest way to handle this that I can max my contributions for if not now later when I get a job hopefully. Thanks in advance for your guidance.
