With regard to a Roth IRA, only a *regular* contribution is subject to the $6,500 annual limit. A conversion to a Roth IRA involves a *conversion* contribution, *not* a regular contribution. If Vanguard is indicating that you are not eligible to make the contribution due to already having made $6,500 in *regular* contributions to a Roth IRA, they are mistakenly processing the conversion contribution as a regular contribution. Make sure that you (or they) are using the correct Vanguard form for a Roth conversion so that Vanguard does not try to treat it as a regular contribution. The form to use if your traditional IRA is also at Vanguard: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/s254.pdf">https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/s254.pdf</a>
Are both accounts at Vanguard?
Is it an account rep that is telling you that you can't do the conversion? If so, escalate to a supervisor.
If the traditional IRA was at a different financial institution, Vanguard doesn't seem to have a form to indicate an indirect conversion contribution. Perhaps they want you to roll it over to a Vanguard traditional IRA first and then do an in-house Roth conversion using the form above. However, it's perfectly legal to take a distribution from a traditional IRA at one financial institution and make a conversion contribution to a Roth IRA at another.
