I believe I have found an answer to my questions. Turns out due no doubt to answering some question in the IRA interview incorrectly, turbotax checked to see if the taxable amount of my inherited IRA distribution could be reduced. This led to my questions. What I ended up doing was to delete a couple of the ira tax worksheets and go through the questions again in Turbotax. This cleared up the questions I had.
The 1040 now shows the full taxable amount of the distribution. The 8606 no longer does the taxable calculation for the Inherited IRA distribution ,which had no basis, which is also correct.
Regarding the explanation of my Recharacterization statement showing identically in 2 different areas of Turbotax - seems that's the way it works according to who I spoke to in tech support. In the end none of this duplication shows in the explanatory note for the Recharacterization with my return.
Thanks for replying to my posts and helping me think through this issue.
