My Roth is 30 years old. Why do I need my basis and how do I find it out.

[dmertz]

You would need to determine your Roth IRA basis from your onw records of contributions.  Those records include account statements, Forms 5498, Forms 1099-R for Roth conversions and rollovers from employer plans.  If you ever took a distribution from your Roth IRAs, you'll also nee the Forms 1099-R that report those.

With respect to 2023, your Roth IRA can't be more than 25 years old because Roth IRAs did not exist before 1998 when they were introduced, so that's as far back as you would need to go to find records.

If you are over age 59½ and your first contribution to a Roth IRA was made before 2019, it's not necessary to know your basis because distributions from your Roth IRAs are qualified distributions.

[mikewinnick1]

DMertz,

Thanks for the answer and yes, I was being hyperbolic because I just could remember when I first got the Roth, which was in fact in 1998.

When this first came up last year, and only for my wife as we had taken a distribution from her IRA, I had read somewhere to just ignore the question, which I did, and it was accepted by the IRS and I heard nothing after. When it happened again this month I started to get annoyed because as you pointed out we're both way over 59 1/2, actually over 70, and we've had them since they were introduced. So I'm just going to ignore the question as it's just Turbo asking me and when they do the efile I'm sure they'll figure out that the question requires no answer.

Thank again.