@thegoodreturn wrote:
Thank you jtax. So it sounds like I'd recharacterize the Roth IRA to traditional. What would I do next to make it a backdoor Roth? Recharacterize it again, or is it a different process?
I think you need to "convert" not "recharacterize" this Trad IRA to a Roth. Recharacterize is for just making switching a (current year?) contribution from one type to another. To do a backdoor the switch needs to be taxable.
See for example https://www.fidelity.com/retirement-ira/recharacterize , which says that you might recharacterize if (among other cases):
You originally contributed to a traditional IRA
BUT ...
you're within the income limits to get potential tax-free earnings from a Roth.
I think once the funds are in the Traditional you would convert those funds just like you would do for any Roth conversion. Usually the custodian has a form (often online these days).
Again, there could be something that prevents this, but I don't see any such exception.
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