topic I have had a ROTH IRA account since 2016. For 2016, 2017, 2018 it was incorrectly listed as a traditional IRA. Any idea how to fix this? in Retirement tax questions

I have had a ROTH IRA account since 2016. For 2016, 2017, 2018 it was incorrectly listed as a traditional IRA. Any idea how to fix this?

skweaver — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 05:23:43 GMT

Re: I have had a ROTH IRA account since 2016. For 2016, 2017, 2018 it was incorrectly listed as a traditional IRA. Any idea how to fix this?

dmertz — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 14:48:26 GMT

Incorrectly listed where, in TurboTax or at the financial institution?

If you incorrectly showed traditional IRA contributions on your prior tax returns, you'll need to amend those to make the corrections either to the amount shown as an IRA deduction or the amount shown on Form 8606 as a nondeductible contribution.

And since you were previously confused about the type of account, make sure that you are not confusing contributions to a qualified retirement plan that would be shown in box 12 of your W-2 with regular IRA contributions.

Re: I have had a ROTH IRA account since 2016. For 2016, 2017, 2018 it was incorrectly listed as a traditional IRA. Any idea how to fix this?

skweaver — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 20:19:46 GMT

Thanks so much for your response @dmertz!

My personal ROTH IRA has been a ROTH IRA since I opened it in 2016, however on my taxes it has always been listed as a traditional IRA. My employer only has 401K contributions and not any IRA contributions.

To clarify I would file a 8606 for each of the three years to claim my ROTH IRA as in fact a ROTH and not a traditional IRA? Do you anticipate I will need to pay back taxes for this? Also will I need to file a 1040 form as well?

Thanks again.

Re: I have had a ROTH IRA account since 2016. For 2016, 2017, 2018 it was incorrectly listed as a traditional IRA. Any idea how to fix this?

dmertz — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:20:01 GMT

Your amended tax returns will not show any claiming of Roth IRA contributions (nor do the need to), each amendment will just show the removal of a previously reported deduction for a traditional IRA contribution or will change Form 8606 to show that no nondeductible traditional IRA contribution was made.

If your Form 8606 needs to be corrected to eliminate a previously reported nondeductible traditional IRA contribution, you'll need to prepare the corrected Form manually to show $0 on line 1 (and probably line 2a for at least some of them). Doing the amendment in TurboTax will just remove the Form 8606 since it will see that your original tax return would not have included it, but now you need to explicitly correct the Form 8606.