Filing Turbo Tax Roth IRA Recharacterization

[jzhang]

Hi everyone, while filing tax return over the weekend, I just realized I exceeded the income limits for a Roth IRA in 2019.  So, I re-characterized the entire 2019 Roth IRA contribution amount $5,000 into a Traditional IRA. When I was doing the Turbo Tax Premier reporting, there is a template asking for the "Contributing Date", "Recharacterization Date" and Reasons for recharacterization. I made the contributions every month in 2019. Should I put in the last contribution date (December) or the first contribution date (January)?? Thanks for helping! 

[dmertz]

The template just gets you a starting point for the explanation statement.  You can then edit the statement any way you want.

The calculation period for attributable earnings required to accompany the recharacterization begins on the first date that you made a contribution that you are recharacterizing, so for the contribution date I would just enter the first date you made a Roth IRA contribution for 2019, the January date, but you can edit the result to indicate the you made additional contributions during the computation period.

There is really no need to provide a reason for the recharacterization since there are no restrictions on your ability to do this recharacterization.

[jzhang]

Thanks for the quick response@dmertz

Just to make sure I fully understand it, in your answer "....you can edit the result to indicate the you made additional contributions during the computation period", where exactly can I edit the results and indicate the additional contributions? 

[dmertz]

After you click the Continue button on the template page, TurboTax presents the explanation statement created from the template.  There you can edit anything on the explanation statement.

[Iraltax]

Hello, after you recharacterized from Roth to traditional, did you then convert back to Roth?  
Where there tax implications and did you need to attached another tax form? Thanks.

[MarilynG1]

@Iraltax If you recharacterized from Roth to Traditional IRA, then converted back to a Roth IRA, you may have received two 1099-R's.

Click this link for detailed info on how to enter this into TurboTax.