@rkierski wrote:
As it turns out... it doesn't appear that line 14 is actually copied. But rather a line from an IRA worksheet. And, when I did my 2019 taxes I answered a couple of questions wrong.
TurboTax asks for the total of all traditional IRA's as of 12/31. To which I said "$0". On that same page, it asks for the total of outstanding recharacterizations. I left that blank, it assumed $0.
The problem is in the wording. As I had already completed the both recharacterizations, there weren't any outstanding or in progress at the time of the question. But it should have asked if I'd done any recharacterizations since 12/31 for 2019... which I had.
For line 14, TurboTax correctly calculated the basis with the information I'd provided -- the total of the 2 recharacterizations minus the amount converted to Roth. But in the Wrks, it should have reported an error because the value for line 14 that it calculated was different than the value in the Wrks -- $0.
NOTHING about a 2019 recharacterization goes in the 2020 tax return at all. That is reported on the 2019 tax return. The 8606 box 14 that you enter in the interview comes from the *2019* 8606 for the recharacterization. There are no 2020 outstanding recharactorizations.
If you do not have a 2019 8606 with the amount of the recharactorized contribution (not including earnings) on line 14 the you have not filed your 2019 tax return properly.
**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**
