how do we track Roth IRA basis

[cririuss_ca]

How do you track your Roth IRA basis ?  Does the Roth IRA contributions/distributions  get reported in 1099-R  or Form 5498 ?    And what is the best way to get the total  Roth IRA basis on a   Roth IRA account  vs a ROTH IRA conversion?    Also, if you contribute to a Roth IRA account (regular Roth IRA or  ROTH conversion) over the years , how do you get the total basis for each? 

[Opus 17 · Accepted solution]

Keep track yourself with your own records.

Contributions are reported to you by the broker on form 5498, usually issued in May of the following year.  The IRS gets a copy of form 5498, but they only keep copies for 7 years and they don't keep track for you.

The broker will not keep track for you, for various reasons that I can explain if you are really curious.  

IRA means individual retirement arrangement.  You only have one arrangement, regardless of how many different accounts you have at different brokers.  Your contributions and withdrawals are combined for tax purposes.  (If you contribute $5000 to account A and $5000 to account B, and then withdraw $6000 from account A, that counts as all basis, and you have $4000 of basis left in your IRA even though it is not balanced across accounts.)   So you only need to keep track of your total lifetime contributions, total lifetime conversions, and total lifetime withdrawals--you don't have to track multiple accounts separately if you don't want to.