AndreaG
New Member

Retirement tax questions

As long as you entered the Roth IRA contribution in the "Traditional and Roth IRA contribution" section AND you meet all the requirements for the credit, you should get the credit. 

It depends on your exact circumstances. If you took distributions from your retirement plans after 2013 but before the due date (including extensions) of your 2016 tax return, this will reduce the eligible contributions that are used to calculate the credit. If the distributions are greater than your Roth IRA contributions, then there wont be any contributions for the purposes of calculating the credit. Please see page 48 of Pub 590A under the heading, "reducing eligible contributions", for additional information regarding what types of distributions will reduce your eligible contributions. 

There are additional requirements concerning your age, AGI, status as a student, and whether you are a dependent taxpayer. See pages 48-49 of Pub 590A under the heading, "retirement savings contributions credit" if you would like to review all of the requirements for claiming this https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590a.pdf

In the retirement and investment sections you would click on "retirement savings contributions credit" to answer questions regarding the credit. Your Roth IRA contributions will not show up on the screens that you go through for the credit. The screen will actually show zero for contributions. After you answer the questions it will tell you if you got a credit.

To determine if you got a credit, you can review your Form 1040:

  • Log in to your Turbo Tax account
  • click on "take me to my return"
  • Click on "my account" tab at the very top of the screen
  • Click on "tools"
  • Click on "view tax summary"
  • Click on "preview my 1040". This is part of a narrow white bar at the very top of the screen
  • When your 1040 form appears, you will be able to scroll through and look at the individual line items. Line 51 on Form 1040 and line 34 of Form 1040A will show an amount if you have gotten the credit.
  • Click the "back" button when you want to return to your main Turbo Tax screen. The back button is part of a narrow white bar at the very top of the screen.