Retirement tax questions

To calculate your Roth IRA basis, which is what the question is TurboTax is trying to determine by asking you this, you should sum up all the contributions you have personally made to your Roth IRAs in previous years. From that total, subtract any prior distributions you have taken.

The resulting number is your current cost basis, which allows you to take future distributions up to that amount without paying additional taxes or penalties, even if you are below 59.5 years old.