H, I am just a little confused about entering this number in cost basis at end of December 2020. We usually contribute nondeductible to traditional then convert to Roth right away as to not have any money in the traditional by end of year. When it asks us this question, and let’s say we contributed an even $6000, however at the end of year 2020 there was $0 in traditional, do we put $6000 here, what was on our 5498 for year 2020, what is on our 1099-R, or $0 since nothing remains in the traditional? Thank you
You have zero cost basis in your IRA. As you indicated you put the money into the traditional IRA, then convert to the Roth within the tax year. Keep in mind that you must track your Roth IRA cost basis because this is not being done on the tax return. You must continue to do this until you withdraw and/or retire.
I was confused as well with the same situation. You receive a 1099-R from your financial institution showing Gross distribution and taxable amount being the same. Say you put 6K into a non-deductable Traditional IRA , and then Converted to Roth IRA (back door IRA) shortly thereafter. Your 1099-R shows 6K Gross Dist and Taxable amount 6K. Even the balance in Traditional acct is 0 by end of year. Turbo tax will ask you a few questions later if those funds were converted to Roth IRA. After answering "yes" it will correct taxes owed and it will become a non event for taxes owed.
Thanks all, during the interview process when it asks how much did I contribute to Roth IRA, do I input what I actually transferred from my bank ($6000) or the amount on 1099-R that was converted? These numbers are not the same. Thanks
So going forward what is the cost basis for Roth IRA? Basically what the amount is on my form 1099-R every year that I converted? Or the actual amount I contributed to traditional? Bc these numbers are different thanks
The amount you convert from the traditional IRA and any additional funds you might contribute to your Roth IRA in addition to any conversions. This will be your ongoing and accumulated cost basis in the Roth IRA.
Unfortunately, I am unable to speak to the differences you see on Forms 5498, it could be fees or interest earned even if short periods. Check with your financial agent to understand the difference.
here’s a curveball. My wife during 2021 rolled over her pretax deductible IRA from vanguard to fidelity let’s say $10,000. However, to the advice of my financial planner we contributed let’s say nondeductible $5000 to traditional then converted this cash amount to Roth within the same year. This whole $5000 is now in the Roth, however the original $10000 pretax still remains in her traditional. How does this affect reporting for TurboTax 2021? We shouldn’t be paying any tax on the remaining amount in traditional correct? Thank you
If existing IRA's contain any pre-tax money or earnings then it will be partly taxable when you take money from it to fund a Roth IRA. This will be worked out in the tax return using Form 8606.
Here is more information provided by our awesome Tax Champ @macuser_22 explaining the Backdoor Roth and rules:
'The "Backdoor Roth" does not exist in tax law. It is a procedure used by some to take advantage of a quirk in tax law that allows making a non-deductible contribution to a Traditional IRA when one cannot contribute to a Roth IRA, and the immediately converting the Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, thereby getting the money into the Roth via "backdoor" tax free.
That "procedure" can only work of all these requirements are met:
1) No Traditional IRA account whatsoever can exist (that includes any SEP or SIMPLE IRA accounts) at the start. If existing IRA's contain any before-tax money or earnings then it will be partly taxable.
2) The Tradition IRA contributions must be reported on a 8606 form as non-deductible.
3) The conversion to a ROTH must be shortly after the contribution to avoid taxable gains.
4) The entire Traditional IRA value must be zero that the end of the year of conversion.'
So this is interesting and thank you for the information. Basically, we have about $14,000 rolled over deductible pretax from a previous employer into traditional IRA. We have been putting in $5000 for year 2021 into the SAME traditional IRA and converted this SAME after-tax dollars into a Roth. Based on the information you provided, we actually are NOT allowed to do this backdoor roth bc we have an existing amount of $14,000 pre-tax dollars? Will we then be taxed on the $5000 we converted?
We were told we could do this by our financial institution. If this is true that we could not do this, Going forward how can my wife do a backdoor conversion if she has existing money in her traditional IRA?
Thank you!
Yes, if you have other traditional IRA amounts in addition to the amounts that are being converted using the back door Roth strategy, your Roth conversion will not be entirely tax free.
The IRS pools all of your IRA accounts into one figure and uses a pro-rata rule to determine how much can be converted tax free.
For example, if you have $20000 in a traditional IRA, with $5000 being non-deductible, and you are converting $5000 this year using the back door Roth strategy, 25% will be tax free.
$5000 / $20000 (total IRA amount) = .25 or 25%.
Your financial institution did not lie to you unless they guaranteed it would be 100% tax free regardless of other IRA accounts you may have.
As far as the future, the backdoor Roth loophole may be closed soon. Legislation has passed the House, but not the Senate to do that.
Thank you for the info. My wife rolled over $14k pretax to traditional from her work, and contributed $5k nondeductible to the traditional IRA. she converted this $5k to Roth, but left the remaking $14k pretax in the traditional. How do we report this in turbotax so she only gets taxed on a portion of the $5k converted and not on the $14k still sitting in her traditional? Thank you!
Please be aware, that each distribution/ conversion will have a taxable part because of the pre-taxed $14,000 in the traditional IRA. The only way to perform the backdoor Roth conversions without being taxable in the future is to empty the traditional IRA by converting it all and pay the taxes on this conversion. Otherwise each contribution/conversion will be part taxable and part nontaxable.
TurboTax calculates the taxable part based on the information entered about the basis and the value of all traditional, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs on December 31, 2021 (step 7 below).
Thank you.
So step 7 I would put $5k for our non deductible contribution, and where would we input the remaining $14k, when it asks for the basis for December, 2021? I’m just confused bc you mentioned prior years. In 2020 we had a basis of $0, for 2021 we had a basis of $14k. We also only put her contribution of $14k not her total after gains correct?
thank you
If you did not have a basis from prior years you will enter $0 for the basis (nondeductible contributions/ after-tax contributions) in step 7 and you will enter the value of all your wife's traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs on December 31, 2021, on the next screen. You can find the value of the IRA on the end of the year statement. Then TurboTax can calculate how much is taxable and nontaxable.
The nondeductible contribution for 2021 will be entered when you enter the IRA contribution under Deduction & Credits.
To verify, the $14,000 are pre-taxed rollover from the 401k rollover and therefore you do not have a $14,000 basis.
You contributed the $6,000 in 2021 and converted this in 2021. You did not make a contribution for 2020 in 2021, correct?
Ok. I’m a little confused. So you mentioned to put the VALUE of the traditional IRA in basis for December 31, 2021? So, if she rolled over $14k but now the value of it after gains is $14,500, to enter $14,500 for the end of the year basis?
“For example, if you have $20000 in a traditional IRA, with $5000 being non-deductible, and you are converting $5000 this year using the back door Roth strategy, 25% will be tax free.
$5000 / $20000 (total IRA amount) = .25 or 25%.”
In this example, we already paid taxes on the $5k, are they taxing 75% of the $5k we converted? That wouldn’t make sense to tax the remaining $15k correct?
and we did not contribute anything from 2021 to 2020 from her bank account, she recharacterized maybe $2k or so in 2021 for year 2020. Thank you
Please be aware, the basis and value of a traditional IRA are two different things. The basis is nondeductible contributions (after-tax contributions). The value at the end of the year you find on your end of the year statement, it consists of the contributions, earnings, and rollovers.
The calculation would be like shown below (this is done on Form 8608):
Value in traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRA on Dec 31, 2021 $20,000
Distributions $0
Conversions to Roth $ 5,000
Total $25,000
Basis $5,000
$5,000/$25,000 = 0.2
Nontaxable Conversion part $5,000 x 0.2 = $1,000
Therefore $4,000 are taxable.
The basis of $4,000 can be used for future distributions and conversions.
As you can see from the calculation it is important to keep track of your basis on Form 8606 through the years. Furthermore, because of this allocation, a backdoor Roth only works correctly if all traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRA are empty before starting making contributions using the backdoor Roth technique.
You mentioned that you recharacterized a 2020 contribution. I assume your wife had contributed to a Roth IRA for 2020 and then it was recharacterized as a traditional IRA and made nondeductible. Therefore, you would have a $2,000 basis from the prior year which you will have to enter when TurboTax asks (steps 6 and 7 below). You should be able to see your basis on the 2020 Form 8606 line 14.
To enter prior-year basis screen:
To enter the end of the year value screen:
Hey Dana, this might be the exact issue giving me headache. See below:
“You mentioned that you recharacterized a 2020 contribution. I assume your wife had contributed to a Roth IRA for 2020 and then it was recharacterized as a traditional IRA and made nondeductible. Therefore, you would have a $2,000 basis from the prior year which you will have to enter when TurboTax asks (steps 6 and 7 below). You should be able to see your basis on the 2020 Form 8606 line 14.”
So yes, my wife lets say contributed $1000 to Roth in 2020 in error. However, at the end of the year 2020 her basis was exactly $0. Then in March 2021, we recharacterized this $1000 for 2020 back to traditional, then converted back to Roth in March 2021 as soon as it was able to. So having said this, and there was no basis at end of 2020, would the $1000 (now treated as nondeductible in traditional IRA) be truly a basis at end of 2020 or just part of our nondeductible contribution when we amend 2020?
Thank you
Yes, since you recharacterized the 2020 Roth contribution as a traditional IRA contribution and made them nondeductible you will have a basis reported on Form 8606. You should have entered the recharacterization on your 2020 tax return like the steps below.
You will enter the recharacterization when you enter the contribution to the Roth IRA
Hi Dana,
So when I amend 2020, I do not necessarily need to report this 2021 1099-R with recharacterization (basis + gains) per se on 2020 but just enter the amount we recharacterized (without gains)? So in the end of December 31, 2020 we will have a basis of this recharacterized contribution? How will this affect us paying taxes on this amount even though it’s after tax and there was actually $0 in this account at end of year?
Do we have to report this recharacterized amount as described above (2021 recharacterized for year 2020 basis with gains or losses) anywhere on our 2021 return?
Sorry for the confusion and thank you.
I agree with Diane who told you that you have a 0 basis for the traditional IRA. You had a basis that equaled what you paid into the traditional IRA, but you reduced it to 0 when you converted.
“Please be aware, the basis and value of a traditional IRA are two different things. The basis is nondeductible contributions (after-tax contributions). The value at the end of the year you find on your end of the year statement, it consists of the contributions, earnings, and rollovers.”
Hi, this value is basically what is in the account at end of year 2021 correct? This does not include what we converted to Roth, just whatever is sitting in the traditional IRA (should all be pretax in our situation)
So I’m truly confused now, this $2k that we recharacterized in 2021 for year 2020. From my understanding we made this a nondeductible contribution when we recharacterized, and we converted it to Roth in 2021. Does this conversion in 2021 make our end of year basis for 2020 $0 or $2k since the conversion was done in 2021, for year 2020?
I think from our 1099-R for 2021 this conversion amount that was recharacterized as mentioned above was included in Roth conversion for year 2021. Thank you!
Yes, the value on December 31, 2021, is the value of what is in the account at end of the year 2021. This will be on your end-of-the-year statement.
Yes, this does not include what you converted to Roth during 2021, it is just whatever is left sitting in the traditional IRA on December 31, 2021.
Please be aware, that this value left in the traditional IRA will have part of your non-deductible basis (nontaxable part) and part pre-tax contributions plus earning (taxable part). You can't just choose to take out the nontaxable basis part and leave the taxable part in the account. Each distribution/ conversion going forward will have a taxable and nontaxable part until you empty the traditional IRA completely (=$0 at the end of the year). If you do that then you can start fresh and use the backdoor Roth method correctly and make nondeductible traditional IRA contributions and convert them tax-free to a Roth account.
No, the recharacterization of a 2020 contribution is not reported on your 2021 return. This will only go on your 2020 tax return.
Thanks, what are your thoughts on this comment?
“I agree with Diane who told you that you have a 0 basis for the traditional IRA. You had a basis that equaled what you paid into the traditional IRA, but you reduced it to 0 when you converted.”
You are saying I have a $2k basis for end of year 2020 for the amount I recharacterized in 2021 for year 2020, and ended up converting it in 2021. Since I converted it in 2021, does the conversion count for year 2020 or 2021? If the $2k in Basis holds true, how does this affect paying taxes in either 2020 or 2021?
What we were doing for our traditional, as recommended by my financial institution, was convert the after tax dollars we contributed right away to Roth, as these were just held as cash and not in any stocks or funds. Essentially with the exception of $500 after tax remaining in the traditional, we converted all of the after tax dollars to Roth. I want to ensure we input this correctly as to not pay any unnecessary taxes for and pretax amount still sitting in our traditional. Thank you
In regards to the comment, when Diane answered the original question "making a nondeductible contribution in 2020 and then convert right away" then yes, your basis from prior years would be $0. But added information in your posts at a later time, stating you recharacterized a 2020 Roth contribution (this will be reported on your 2020 tax return) that you converted in 2021. Therefore, you have a prior year basis to enter on your 2021 return.
If you have a prior year basis of $2,000 plus the 2021 nondeductible contribution of $6,000 then you have a total basis of $8,000 before converting.
Assuming you have $20,000 value left in the traditional IRA on December 31, 2021:
Value in traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRA on Dec 31, 2021 $20,000
Distributions $0
Conversions to Roth $ 8,000
Total $28,000
Basis $8,000
$8,000/$28,000 = 0.286
Nontaxable Conversion part $8,000 x 0.286 = $2,288
Therefore $5,712 are taxable.
The leftover basis of $5,712 can be used for future distributions and conversions.
Please be aware, that the recommendation that your financial advisor gave you only works if no Traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA account exists. But your wife moved the funds from the 401k to the traditional IRA and then the backdoor Roth will not work smoothly as intended.