Backdoor Roth Shows as Fully Taxable

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
March 7, 2026
4 replies
204 views

(A) I entered backdoor Roth contributions for both my wife and me. They were entered correctly per other posts, and per how I did them last year. I had no problems last year.

(B) This year, I now have RMD's from an inherited IRA, which I tagged as Inherited in TurboTax.

In case it matters, I have 2 other 1099-R forms:

(D) a little money moved from one 401k to another.

TurboTax is showing that I owe taxes on (A) + (B); I see this on line 4b in the 1040 Form. According to my understanding of the law, I only owe tax on (B).

Is this a bug in TurboTax, or did I enter something incorrectly somewhere?

This is TT Home & Biz 2025 Desktop for Windows.

~~~ Update

I figured it out, with help from this post. I had not entered them in as Traditional IRA Contributions (under Retirement and Investments).

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/back-door-roth-conversion-amount-comes-as-fully-taxable/00/2605693

TurboTax employees: Would you please update this link below? It is insufficient in that it says nothing of needing to enter "Traditional and Roth IRA Contributions" under "Retirement and Investments." Thanks.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/retirement-benefits/enter-backdoor-roth-ira-conversion/L7gGPjKVY_US_en_US

TurboTax Home & Biz Windows

Best answer by dmertz

Expert Reviewed

Distributions from an inherited IRA have nothing to do with anything about your own IRAs. When TurboTax asks for the year-end value in your IRAs, do not include the inherited IRA.

Make sure that you have entered your traditional IRA contributions and make sure that they are treated as nondeductible. Examine the calculations on the two Forms 8606 to see that the nondeductible contributions appear on line 1.

dmertzAnswer

Level 15

Expert Reviewed

Distributions from an inherited IRA have nothing to do with anything about your own IRAs. When TurboTax asks for the year-end value in your IRAs, do not include the inherited IRA.

DanH2300Author

Level 2

Thanks, dmertz!

I think I updated the original post as you were writing. I missed the part in your 2nd paragraph. As I noted in my updated post, the instructions for the Backdoor Roth also lacked that 2nd part. I hope someone updates them so the next person will save a couple hours of their time.

Appreciate that you took the time to write; had I stopped looking after posting and waited for your response, it would have saved me a couple hours of digging! 🙂