dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

You cannot recharacterize a Roth IRA contribution to be a SEP IRA contribution (although you could recharacterize it to be a regular traditional IRA contribution to the SEP IRA account, if your SEP IRA custodian permits regular, personal contributions to your SEP IRA account; of course it would be a nondeductible contribution).  Roth IRA contributions are personal contributions while SEP IRA contributions are employer contributions.  (A self-employed person is both employer and employee for the purpose of making retirement contributions.)

As I mentioned, you can recharacterize the Roth IRA contribution to be a nondeductible regular traditional IRA contribution.  You could also request a return of the Roth IRA if you don't want to make a nondeductible traditional IRA contribution, but any earnings attributable to the returned contribution would be taxable and potentially subject to an early-distribution penalty.