No, you misunderstand the timeline. I was not attempting to backdoor my 401k contributions.
First, in March I did a standard backdoor Roth conversion, which isolated would have been fine and I would have ended the year with 0 in trad IRA and +6000 (+gain/-loss) in Roth IRA.
However, I forgot about this when I rolled over old 401ks into a traditional IRA. I left it alone for the whole year.
The result is, on 12/31/2020 I had a significant positive balance in traditional IRA, from the 401k rollover, that is unrelated to the Roth conversion in March. I have to enter a large positive number on form 8606 line 6. Line 7 I enter 6000. Therefore, line 10 is close to 0 -- instead of 1 -- which it would have been if I had not made the error of leaving my 401k rollover in the traditional IRA on 12/31/2020. Therefore, I owe tax on the 6000 March Roth conversion as if it were a distribution from the balance on 12/31/2020, even though in March the balance was 0.
My understanding is, prior to 2018, I could have recharacterized it back to traditional IRA and undid the damage, but I am no longer allowed to due to the tax cuts and jobs act. So my question is, is there any other way out?
