@windowsi11
From what you've said so far, it sounds like your additional $1000 contribution was entered on that year's tax return as a deductible IRA contribution in for that year. Thus, yes, it became effectively pre-tax $$.
All earnings in that account are thus, pre-tax too ( "assuming my parents' gift was pre-tax to begin with" Yeah, I'm not conversant on rules for parents creating/gifting an IRA for a child, maybe @dmertz could comment on that if he is monitoring TTX right now).
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Whether it was a goof to make that extra $1000 a deductible contribution would be a tossup. Sometimes non-deductible contributions can cause massive calculation confusions when distributions or conversions are eventually made.....but since it appears that all the account is considered pre-tax $$, it is far simpler to deal with when either transferring to another t-IRA, or converting to a ROTH IRA.
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double taxation though??? Nahhh (just my Opinion). Because it was a deductible contribution, those $$ were removed from your AGI in the year you made the contribution...it became non-taxed money....so it gets taxed just once when distributed, or converted to a ROTH IRA. I guess it's possible for folks who had low income in the year of the contribution, where their income was so low that they had no tax liability in the first place and the contribution really didn't help them, but then....they might have received a Retirement Savings Contribution Credit that year to make up for that.
____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*
