The situation you described is also known as a back door Roth contribution.
A back door Roth is a term used to describe a method of funding a
Roth IRA when your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is too high to allow
you to directly contribute to a Roth IRA.
A back door Roth consists of opening a Traditional IRA and making a fully
non-deductible contribution to the Traditional IRA. The Traditional IRA can then be converted to
a Roth IRA without any income limitations or restrictions on your MAGI.
Here are the general steps you need to take to report this type of
transaction in TurboTax, either the online or desktop version. First, take care of the Traditional IRA contribution:
- Enter “IRA contributions”
in the search box located in the upper right corner of the program and initiate
the search.
-
Your top search results
will be a link to Jump to the section you need.
- Check the box showing that
you contributed to a Traditional IRA.
Remember, that is where you initially put the money.
- The next screen asks you to
verify that you contributed to a Traditional IRA, choose Yes.
- The next screen asks if the
contribution was a repayment of a retirement distribution, choose No.
- Next, enter the amount that
was contributed to the Traditional IRA.
- The next screen is a little
tricky unless you read it carefully. It
is asking if you “recharacterized” the contribution. This is different from a conversion, so the
answer is No.
- On the next screen (or
two), there will be a question about whether you are covered by a retirement
plan at work. Answer according to your
situation.
- Following that, there will
be a question about Excess IRA Contributions.
Answer this according to your situation.
- Now, we’re at an important
step. The question will be, were there
any nondeductible contributions to the IRA.
The answer here is Yes.
- The next page asks for the
basis of the Traditional IRA. If you
have never made nondeductible contributions in the past and kept them in the
IRA, your basis is zero.
Otherwise, enter the amount shown as total basis on your most
recently filed Form 8606.
That takes care of the first part of the process. Next, you need to take care of the conversion of the Traditional IRA to the
Roth IRA. When you do this, a Form
1099-R will be issued to report the conversion.
You will simply enter the information from the Form 1099-R into TurboTax
using these steps:
- Enter “1099-R,
distribution from an ira” in the search box located in the upper right
corner of the program and initiate the search.
- Your top search results
will be a link to Jump to the section you need.
- Enter the information
exactly as it appears on your Form 1099-R.
Pay special attention to Box 2b, Box 7, and the IRA/SEP/SIMPLE check
box. Click Continue.
- The next screen is a
follow-up question asking whether you inherited the IRA. Answer No.
- The next screen asks what
you did with the money. Answer I
moved the money to another retirement account.
- Then, choose I converted
all of this money to a Roth IRA account to answer the question that
appears.
- Finally, there will be a
final question to determine whether any of the money was moved back to the
traditional IRA. Answer No.
One more note, if the Traditional IRA earned any money before it
was converted to the Roth IRA, those earnings will be taxable on your
return.