dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

With respect to your 2024 tax return, an outstanding recharacterization is a recharacterization of a contribution made for 2024 in 2024 but recharacterized in 2025 by the due date of your tax return, including extensions.

 

Line 19 is added to line 18 to produce the amount to include on Form 8606 line 6.  For an outstanding recharacterization from a Roth IRA to a traditional IRA (the most common recharacterization), the amount recharacterized is entered as a positive number.  If the outstanding recharacterization was from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA (rather rare), the amount recharacterized would be entered as a negative number.  The intent is to make the year-end value on Form 8606 be what it would have been had the contribution originally been made to the account to which it was ultimately recharacterized (without regard to any investment gain or loss attributable to the amount recharacterized).

 

Regarding line 20, you are correct.  You do not have an outstanding rollover to enter because the distribution was not from a traditional IRA.  Only distributions from a traditional IRA near the end of one year and rolled over to a traditional IRA early the next year are considered to be outstanding rollovers.