dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

@Leaf219 , what you proposed in your original question doesn't quite work.  Because the Roth conversion is considered to be a distribution from the traditional IRA and a taxable rollover to the Roth IRA, the distribution included the remainder of your RMD, the amount of which was not eligible for rollover to the Roth IRA.  Rolling that portion over to the Roth IRA makes it an excess contribution to the Roth IRA to the extent that it exceeds the amount that you are eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2021.

 

Because your RMD was distributed from the traditional IRAs when you moved the money to a Roth IRA, your RMD was fully satisfied and you have no need for Form 5329 Part IX.

 

Assuming that the amount of the RMD that remained to be satisfied at the time that you converted everything to Roth was $1,000, the correction is to tell TurboTax that you converted $1,000 less than the amount that was moved to the Roth IRA and that you made a $1,000 regular contribution to the Roth IRA.  You'll also need to inform the Roth IRA custodian of this so that the Form 5498 that they issue shows a $1,000 regular contribution in box 1 and $1,000 less in box 3 as a Roth conversion contribution than they would otherwise show.  If you are eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2021, you don't have to do anything else.  Otherwise, if your modified AGI for the purpose makes you ineligible to make a $1,000 Roth IRA contribution, you would need to recharacterize the excess regular Roth IRA contribution to be a traditional IRA contribution or obtain a return of excess contribution from the Roth IRA.