Roth IRA Distribution After Age 59 1/2

I am over 59 1/2 and I have had a Roth IRA open for over 8 years. In 2018 I took a distribution from my Roth IRA. Everything I have read says that the various five year rules for Roth IRA's do not apply for people over 59 1/2. Why does Turbo Tax require me to enter contribution and conversion data for the previous five plus years?

dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

Prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 you could get a miscellaneous deduction for any unrecoverable basis if your investments in your Roth IRA had lost value and you received distributions of your entire Roth IRA balance, so TurboTax needed to know your contribution and conversion basis and year end balance to know whether or not to include that deduction on your tax return.  The suspension of this deduction expires after 2025, so TurboTax continues to ask for thin information so that TurboTax will have this information in the future when the deduction returns.

 

If you do not ever expect to claim this deduction, since your Roth IRA distributions are now qualified distributions you can omit your basis information since TurboTax doesn't need it to prepare your tax return.

Retirement tax questions

Thank you