dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

Mamadesiete, that's the risk you take when you take a distribution from an IRA to provide the equivalent of a short-term loan.  The 60-day deadline and the one-per-one-year-period limitation on rollovers were enacted specifically to discourage such use of IRA funds.  When IRA distributions have been used in this manner, the IRS has invariably denied requests for waiver of the 60-day deadline except perhaps in one case I recall where an escrow company made some mistake that delayed the funds beyond what was explicitly promised.  In the exception case the taxpayer filed for a Private Letter Ruling requesting waiver of the 60-day deadline, but recent changes to the fee structure make requesting a PLR  prohibitively expensive and, in your circumstances, almost certainly would be unsuccessful anyway.  Revenue Procedure 2016-47 does not provide any relief under these circumstances; the situation you describe does not conform to one of the permitted reasons for self-certification. 

 

The distribution is not taxable if the distribution consisted only of Roth IRA contribution basis (although it is reportable), but you've lost the potential for future tax-free growth on that money.