My ex wife received my Roth IRA. Where do I report that?

[garymcmenamin]

As part of a divorce decree, my ex wife received the total amount of my Roth IRA, which was disbursed to her during the 2016 tax year. The balance was transferred to an account established for her and then she cashed it out. Do I need to claim this somewhere on my return?

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

If properly done, a trustee-to-trustee transfer of the Roth IRA incident to divorce is not reportable.  What she did with her Roth IRA after the transfer has no effect on your tax return.

A trustee-to-trustee transfer is neither a distribution nor a rollover.  You should not be receiving a Form 1099-R for this and you would therefore not have anything to report on your transfer.  You *would* need to make an adjustment in TurboTax to your basis in Roth IRA contributions since the basis transferred to to your wife in proportion to your overall balance in Roth IRAs.  If all of your Roth IRAs transferred to her, all of your contribution basis would have transferred with it leaving you with zero contribution basis.