Confused on Roth IRA question

Forum|Forum|3 months ago
April 12, 2026
1 reply
101 views

I'm confused by Turbo Tax Deluxe questions at the end of typing in all of my wife's Roth IRA 1099R data for 2025. But before I tell you what is confusing me, I'll give all the precursor info up front.
In November of last year (2024) my wife had only had one Roth IRA. It matured at it's current custodian and it was small we couldn't find a place to 1035 it since they all had higher deposit requirements.
So we just decided to distribute the whole thing. She's had it for over 20yrs and she well over 59.5 yrs old.
It did not have any stocks etc for capital gains, no trad IRA conversions etc. Just a original small Roth IRA that has moved through 3 custodians over the years and slowly grew to $9256.20
So I get to hopefully near the end of Turbo's questions and then it asked me this
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Jo's Roth IRAs
What were Jo's Roth IRA contributions prior to 2025?
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We don't know what the original amount that she first put in the original bank Roth years ago. And when the bank CD matured she 1035 rolled it into a MYGA Annuity and then another yrs later. We don't have the answer to what were her contribution was. We only know that it's now worth $9256.20.
What the does it matter anyhow it's a Vanilla Roth there won't be any tax on this distribution and Turbo Tax should know that since I've already answered all their questions about capital gains and trad IRA conversions, there were none.
And what are we supposed to do now, since we can't give Turbo Tax the answer to this?

Best answer by MaryK4

TurboTax calculates basis in case the distribution was not qualified. Since it doesn't know for certain you are finished with the interview, it’s trying to fill out Form 8606 in the background.

Since you don't have the original records from 20 years ago, you can enter the full distribution amount ($9,256.20) as the total contributions prior to 2025.
By telling TurboTax the basis/contributions are equal to the amount she took out, the software sees $0 in taxable earnings. Since the distribution is qualified anyway, this results in the correct tax treatment ($0 tax) without requiring you to hunt for decades-old bank statements.

MaryK4Answer

Level 15

TurboTax calculates basis in case the distribution was not qualified. Since it doesn't know for certain you are finished with the interview, it’s trying to fill out Form 8606 in the background.

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RB287aAuthor

Level 5

Thanks for the reply, we have since found some items but not all. We know in 2015 it was 1035'd to it's last Annuity custodian was then worth $6729.90. Stayed there until maturity November of 2025. The distribution check was processed Dec 16th 2025.

* So the distributing custodian doesn't know what may have happened along any previous path of said Roth, aside from what was rolled over or 1035's to them. So they code box 2b Taxable Undetermined and box 7 as Q.

* I know the IRS knows it's not taxable since each custodian along the path by law had to file Form 5498 with all pertinent contributions etc.

* And I know that it should NOT be taxable, but I can't produce documents from that far back proving it.

* What's so amazing to me is I've already answered Turbo Tax's previous questions telling it there was no Trad Ira conversions or capital gains type investments. So Turbo Tax should already know it's a Vanilla Roth for heaven's sake. But yet their still probing me with these ambiguous questions that I've got plug in untrue values to get past.

* I can only surmise that things got complicated when they started allowing Trad IRA conversions to a Roth.

* Like you said, I guess I'll be forced to give Turbo Tax an amount the software can use to then let me past this question.