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If filing jointly, if one spouse is collecting Social Security and does not have an earned income, does the earned income of the spouse not collecting Social Security affect the taxability of Social Security benefits received? 

So sorry for your loss.    For 2025, you will be able to file a joint tax return.     For the year that your spouse died, you can still file a joint return.  That way, you will get the married filing jointly standard deduction of $31,500 (+ $1600 for each spouse 65 or older) which will lower the amount of income you are taxed on.   In My Info, you will need to indicate that your spouse died. When his name is in My Info,  there is a screen early in the interview that asks "Do any of these apply to [name] ?’” where you will do that, and then a drop down will appear where you can enter the date he passed.   If you have qualifying dependent children you will be able to file as a qualifying surviving spouse  (QSS) for the next two years after the 2025 tax return.  Post back if you need further help.  

You calculate your RMD for a tax year by dividing the IRA account balance on December 31st of the previous calendar year by the amount that applies to you found in the IRS life expectancy table.     For example: If you are unmarried, age 76 in 2024, and your IRA balance on 12/31/2023 was $150,000, you could calculate the 2024 RMD as follows: 1.  Locate the life expectancy amount for the single taxpayer, age 76 in Table III of IRS Publication 590.  In this example that amount is 23.7 2.  Next divide $150,000 by 23.7.  3.  The RMD is $6329.11 ($150,000/23.7)   You must determine the RMD for each account separately.  However, if you have multiple IRA accounts, you can combine the RMD amounts from each of them and take a single distribution from just one of those IRAs.    You can't combine an IRA RMD with a 401(k) RMD, and you can't combine multiple 401(k) or 403(b) account RMDs together and take only one distribution from one of the accounts.  For these other types of retirement accounts, you must calculate the RMD for each account separately and take a distribution from each account every year. 

There is no annual dollar limit on the amount you can roll over from a 401(k) to a Roth IRA.   If you roll over pre-tax money from a traditional 401(k) to a Roth IRA, the entire amount of the rollover is considered a taxable event. You must include the converted amount in your gross income for the year and pay ordinary income tax on it. You must complete the rollover within 60 days of receiving the distribution unless it’s a direct rollover.   If you roll over funds from a Roth 401(k) to a Roth IRA, it's a tax-free event as the money was already taxed.    Large rollovers in a single year can push you into a higher tax bracket. Many people choose to spread rollovers over multiple years to manage the tax impact.   https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/rollovers-of-retirement-plan-and-ira-distributions This IRS link has valuable information about rollovers.   @mezarturo Thanks for the question.

This didn't include my Social Security Benefits, only the amount from my employer. If I can trust this then I'll owe $0 which is great. However I am suspicious and do not want to have any penalties or interest, if possible. 

It is very hard to provide a definite answer without knowing what other type of income you will have, what is your filing status, pension amount, itemized vs. standard deduction.  If you know the estimated amount for each source of income, I would advise that you either use our online tax calculator or download our TurboTax desktop software to create a dummy return to see how changes in amount will impact taxes.  If you have already filed taxes using TurboTax online, you can download the desktop for free or you can purchase one for 2025 once available in a few weeks.   https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/taxcaster/   https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/cd-download/   Thanks for participating in TurboTax's Ask the Expert event today. I hope this information was helpful! **Please cheer or say thanks by clicking the thumb icon in a post **Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer" Regards, TurboTax Expert

Withdrawals are always taken in the order of contributions first, conversions second, and earnings last.   Contributions can always be withdrawn tax-free no matter your age.   If conversions are withdrawn less than 5 years after the conversion AND you are under age 59-1/2, there is a 10% penalty for early withdrawal.   If earning are withdrawn and you are less than age 59-1/2, OR you are any age but it has been less than 5 years since you opened your first Roth IRA, the earnings are taxable, plus a 10% penalty for early withdrawal if under age 59-1/2.   If you are over age 59-1/2 and it has been more than 5 years since you opened your first Roth IRA, all withdrawals are always tax-free.  There is no annual limit.  

Thank you for the comment.  I followed the link and realized the brackets were published October 2024 before the new laws were passed early this year.  Or, the tax brackets remain the same after the new laws were passed this year?   Thanks!!

@gckennett1 You age has nothing whatsoever to do with whether your Social Security is taxable.     Up to 85% of your Social Security benefits can be taxable on your federal tax return.  There is no age limit for having to pay taxes on Social Security benefits if you have other sources of income along with the SS benefits.  When you have other income such as earnings from continuing to work, investment income, pensions, etc. up to 85% of your SS can be taxable.     What confuses people about this is that before you reach full retirement age, if you continue working while drawing SS, your benefits can be reduced if you earn over a certain limit. (For 2021 it was  $18,960.  For 2022 it was  $19,560  —  for 2023 $21,240)  For 2024, $22,320.  For 2025 it will be $23,400   After full retirement age, no matter how much you continue to earn, your benefits are not reduced by your earnings; your employer will still have to withhold for Social Security and Medicare.  If you work as an independent contractor then you will pay self-employment tax for Social Security and Medicare.   To see how much of your Social Security was taxable, look at lines 6a and 6b of your 2024 Form 1040   https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/are-my-social-security-or-railroad-retirement-tier-i-benefits-taxable   You need to file a federal return if half your Social Security plus your other income is   Single or Head of Household      $25,000 Married Filing Jointly                  $32,000 Married Filing Separately            $0   Some additional information:  There are 9 states that tax Social Security—Colorado, Connecticut,, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont  and West Virginia These states offer varying degrees of income exemptions, but two mirror the federal tax schedule: MN and VT.         IF YOU WANT TO HAVE TAX WITHHELD FROM YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS   https://www.ssa.gov/manage-benefits/request-withhold-taxes https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-w-4-v        

@wagnerconsultinggroupllc   There are 2 different things to know about social security. People get them mixed up all the time. Social Security is saying your SS checks may be REDUCED. Not if it's taxable or not.   1. Your actual SS checks If you are over full retirement age your actual ss checks won't be reduced. Otherwise they will actually reduce your payments if you make too much other income in the prior year. See SS FAQ for working after retirement https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/whileworking.html It says… When we figure out how much to deduct from your benefits, we count only the wages you make from your job or your net profit if you're self-employed. We include bonuses, commissions, and vacation pay. We don't count pensions, annuities, investment income, interest, veterans benefits, or other government or military retirement benefits. Special Earnings Limit Rule https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/rule.html See page 5 for the special first year rule https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10069.pdf     2. Income Tax (even the first year). For any age up to 85% of Social Security becomes taxable when ALL your other income plus 1/2 your social security reaches: Married Filing Jointly: $32,000 Single or head of household: $25,000 Married Filing Separately: 0  

You have to click on the bold area to get to comments. (I haven't figured out how to get the thumbs up button to work) Hopefully you'll see this comment as a floating pop up and then be able to see comments)

Hello,   Welcome to the event:   Your question: "Can I use RMDs from my IRA to fund a donor advice fund? Is this a good strategy to reduce income?"   You can use your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from an IRA to fund a Donor Advised Fund indirectly (DAF). Direct Qualified Charitable Donations (QCD) to DAF are not allowed. Use QCD to reduce taxable income, and separately make donations to DAF from non-IRA fund. Alternatively, you may consider donating appreciated assets to the DAF instead.    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p590b   Hope this helps. 

The key to having taxes taken out of your social security, retirement distributions and IRA distributions is not necessarily to have withholdings on EACH of them, but rather to make sure that you have enough withholdings across all of them to cover your tax bill for the year.   The IRS does not look at withholdings on an individual income document, rather they look at the overall amounts paid in towards your tax liability for the year.   If you don't pay enough in during the year, you may be subject to an underpayment penalty.  However, whether you have withholdings on just one or multiple income sources doesn't matter - as long as you have enough at the end of the day.   So, no, you do not have to take taxes out of all three items - just make sure that if you choose to only have taxes taken out of one or two of them, that you are comfortable the amount taken out is enough to cover the tax liability on all your income for the year.   TurboTax has some great tax calculators to help you estimate your taxes based on your income.  You can visit TurboTax Tax Calculators to find out how much you'll get back this year (or how much you’ll owe), and then use that information to adjust your withholdings on as needed.

When you convert IRA to ROTH, broker will issue you a 1099-R. When you file your 2025 tax return, enter this 1099-R as any other 1099-R. TurboTax will ask you some follow up question to determine the taxable amount. There will be one specific question about non deductible IRA contribution, make sure to say "Yes" to that question and enter the amount of non deductible contribution and total value of IRA account as of year end and TurboTax will do rest of the calculation to determine taxable amount if there is any.    Here is a link to detail steps. You do not need to complete step one since it only applies if you are reporting any contribution for current year.    How do I enter a backdoor Roth IRA conversion?   Thanks for participating in TurboTax's Ask the Expert event today. I hope this information was helpful! **Please cheer or say thanks by clicking the thumb icon in a post **Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer" Regards, TurboTax Expert