Hi fanfare, Thanks for looking at my problem. I admit I am confused by your answer. Taking it sentence by sentence, I will respond. My comments are in itelics.:
recharacterization: the original amount to the first IRA you report as contribution to the second IRA, earnings move but that is ignored. I understand what recharacterization is.
You must use a trustee-to-trustee transfer before the due date April 15,2025 ( or Oct 15, 2025 if 1040 was timely filed or extended). It is all the same trustee.
You will instruct trustee to calculate the allocable earnings. Fidelity did that for him.
Treat the contribution as having been made to the second IRA on the date that it was actually made to the first IRA. I understand. The Form 8606 is for that.
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Upon reporting a Trad IRA contribution (non-deductible) on your tax return, you can then also report a Roth conversion of the contributed amount for net tax of zero, unless your IRA previously had value exceeding basis. All the money he recharacterized from Roth to Trad was then converted back to Roth. So the Trad IRA was close to 0 after every conversion. I reported all of this in TT . TT didn't like that he had recharacterized more than was converted to his Roth. That makes sense. But Fidelity let him do it, so it is done and can't be undone.
In that case, it can't be done tax free. Not concerned about tax here, to be honest. My concern is that he contributed $4000 to his Roth but he recharacterized $6500, and we can't change that. If we could change it to $4000, all would be fine, but it is done.
to report a non-deductible contribution, Form 8606 must be attached.
