Backdoor roth income too high message

[craigin805]

I'm following the directions below but getting a message my income is too high to contribute. Tried look at responses from prior years but the steps are different.   Is there someone that can look at my file with a code?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/retirement-benefits/enter-backdoor-roth-...

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

If TurboTax is saying that your income is too high to contribute, you mistakenly entered a Roth IRA contribution.  For the backdoor, your contribution was a traditional IRA contribution, not a Roth IRA contribution, followed by a Roth conversion, not a recharacterization.  When entering the traditional IRA contribution, make sure to answer No when asked if you "switched' (recharacterized) your traditional IRA contribution to be a Roth IRA contribution instead.

[craigin805]

Hi, On the screen that says "select the kind of IRA you own or contribute", i selected "traditional IRA". Roth is not checked.

On the screen that says 'what did you do with the money'   I moved it to another retirement, I did a combo of rolling over, converting, cashing out, and the amount converted was the full amount that was on my tax form.

[AnnetteB6]

Since the Roth IRA account was not checked in the 'contributions' section of your return, double-check your answer to the question about making your Traditional IRA contribution non-deductible.  That is the key that could be missing to cause the message saying that your income is too high to contribute.  

@craigin805 

[dmertz]

If TurboTax is saying that your income is too high to deduct the contribution rather than too high to make contribution, that's different than what you stated.  Income is never too high to be able to make a traditional IRA contribution.

[craigin805]

Your income is too high to contribute. Roth IRAs offer some great benefits, but they have restrictions based on income. Your MAGI is xxx, which puts you over the roth limit of 153,000. That means the xxxx amount you put in the roth is an excel contribution.

When i look on my 1040 form, 7b is filled with my Roth amount. I wouldn't expect it to be populated based on prior backdoors

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

As I said, you mistakenly reported a Roth IRA contribution, either directly as a Roth IRA contribution or by telling TurboTax that you "switched" the contribution from traditional to Roth.  Revisit the Traditional and Roth IRA contribution section and correct whichever of these entry errors you made.