Why did my taxes owed to federal go up when I entered my contributions for my roth ira for 2017?

[SweetieJean]

Maybe you are not eligible for a Roth?

[Lisa995]

ROTH IRAs are not deductible and if you don't qualify to put money into one, it will create a penalty.

[AnnetteB]

If your balance due increased when you entered your Roth IRA contributions, that probably indicates that you have exceeded the contribution limit for Roth IRAs based on your income and the contribution is being taxed as an excess contribution. 

Go back through the section of your return where you entered the Roth contributions and be sure to go through each screen.  TurboTax will indicate if you have an excess contribution that needs to be removed. 

To read more, take a look at Roth IRA Contributions for 2017.

[Qdiddy-P]

If I maximize the amount of 401K retirement contributions (I'm 54 Years old), Is it true that I would not qualify for the $7,000/yr Roth IRA contribution? 

[RobertB4444]

@Qdiddy-P  Maxing out your 401K does not effect your ability to contribute to a Roth.  You are income limited, however, so your income must be below $125,000 ($198,000 if married filing joint) for 2021.

[Qdiddy-P]

Thank you for the response! I was able to make it through the interview questions and learned my combined income was over the threshold. (I guess that's a good problem). In order to avoid a penalty, I'm going to recharacterize the Roth IRA to a stock account that I originally transferred it over from. 

[iansandland]

This same thing happened to me doing my 2023 taxes. We had converted 28,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. I then made the mistake of entering it as a Roth contribution. It's actually a Roth conversion or rollover from a traditional IRA. If you enter it as a contribution, because it exceeds the contribution limits, TurboTax will add a penalty and increase the amount of tax owed. Don't enter anything for Roth contributions. You're already covered by the previous questions in the section about retirement distributions. Now, if you did make a contribution that wasn't a conversion and is above the contribution limits, you will owe a penalty which will increase your tax liability.