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Level 1
posted Jun 7, 2020 2:16:33 PM

My 2019 income is over the Roth IRA limit, but i didn't know and made contribution to the account earlier this year, what's the best solution?

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1 Replies
Level 15
Jun 7, 2020 3:21:50 PM

If this was a contribution for 2019 then ask the IRA custodian for a "return of excess contribution",  and NOT just an ordinary distribution, then the custodian will figure any earnings on the excess and return both the excess and earnings to you and report it on a 2020 1099-R as a return of contributions.

 

As an alternative, you could ask the cusdodian for it to be recharactorized to a Traditional IRA which would probably also be above the AGI limit to deduct the contribution so it would be an after-tax non-deductible contribution that would reduce future distributions.   If you have no Traditional IRA account at all and that would be the only Traditional IRA money, then you could convert the Traditional IRA to a Roth and the after-tax money will offset the tax - that is known as a "Backdoor Roth" and is used to get money to a Roth when it cannot be contributed directly.     That method ONLY works if you have NO OTHER Traditional IRA accounts and all Traditional IRA accounts will be zero at years end after the conversion.