Pro Rata tax accounting when converting to Roth
I have more than one IRA account. One is a rollover in which before tax money has been growing and is worth about $70,000. The other is a traditional non deductable IRA worth about $30,000 (and one is a Roth IRA of about $10,000 that was opened with after tax money (not a roll over)). My goal is to rollover the traditional IRA (30,000) into a Roth IRA so that I will have a total of $40,000 in Roth IRA account.
I can easily see and report the amount of growth in the standard non deductable IRA. This account is fairly new and even lost money in 2008 so growth is only about $2000 let’s say.
However, I am told that the IRS will look at my total IRAs and use a pro rata approach to taxes. Example
$70,000 Deductible Rollover IRA account number 1111
$30,000 Non Deductable IRA account number 2222
$100,000 Total IRA
$30,000 Convert to Roth
Pro rata share of non deductible contributions is $9000 so taxes will need to be paid on $21,000. (Even though I have paid taxes on the original $28,000)
Can this be so? Please show me how wrong I am because not only have I already converted the little IRA into a Roth, I want to roll over my 401K into an standard non deductible IRA because my company is starting to charge me a fee to have the 401K. If the assumptions here are correct I will convert the Roth back. Thanks for your attention
Permalink Submitted by Alan Spross on Fri, 2010-03-26 02:39
Yes, the pro rate rules do apply when converting any portion of your traditional IRA accounts to a Roth IRA. It does not matter which TIRA account you use to fund the conversion. It appears that you made 28,000 in non deductible contributions to your IRA over the years, and this MUST be reported on Form 8606 each year you made a non deductible contribution. Your most recent 8606 should then show a cumulative total of 28,000 in non deductible contributions. Note that if you did not file the 8606s when you should, you can file them retroactively starting with the oldest year. Until the IRS has an 8606, all of your conversion will be taxable.
Moving on now and assuming that the 8606 forms are correct and 28,000 is your basis, and your total IRA values are 100,000 before the conversion, your conversion would be 28% tax free and 72% taxable. For a 30,000 conversion you would owe taxes on 21,600 of income.
Having 28% of a conversion tax free is pretty good. It means that the tax free money will be in a Roth to grow tax free in the future. The rest of it will be taxed, but that is the whole basis of a Roth – you pay taxes now and get tax free income and tax free growth from here. If you want to reverse (recharacterize) your conversion you can do so in whole or in part. For example, if you recharacterize half, then your remaining conversion will be 15k and your taxable amount 10,800.
You should also consider gains or losses on your conversion before deciding to recharacterize. For example if your 30,000 conversion is now worth 40,000 you already have earned 10,000 tax free. You could look at this as paying tax on 72% times 75% or only 54% of the current value. Do you really want to send all that back to the TIRA where it will be 72% taxable instead of 54% in the future. Granted, your account could lose money in the future, but all you know for sure is the value today.
So perhaps you should recharacterize only a part of the conversion or none of it. That is the good part of this – you get a chance to re visit your decision after you have already found out the tax cost and can reverse all or part of it if you wish. Again, it is a choice of paying the taxes now at a known rate vrs in the future at an unknown rate. Almost any economist will tell you that tax rates will be higher down the road.
Permalink Submitted by [email protected] on Fri, 2010-03-26 16:03
If you have access to a qualified plan that you are participating in and it accepts rollovers – you could then roll the pre-tax money into the qualified plan and be left with the non-deductible account that is all basis and a much better pro-rata conversion calculation.
Permalink Submitted by Janet Ulrich on Fri, 2010-03-26 17:27
Thanks for your help.
It seems I am stuck. I was recently informed that my 401k (my largest investment) will be hit with fees of 0.30 per quarter retroactively from Jan 1 2010. So if I could roll over the traditional IRA into it, it would then be hit with the 0.30% as well. Maybe I will rollover part of the 401k into an annuity.
As they say, I have to do the math, but either way it is costs I did not plan for.
Permalink Submitted by Janet Ulrich on Thu, 2010-04-01 20:46
I have resisted believing I had to combine by non taxable rollover IRA account with my after tax TIRA to get a basis. It is like a penalty for savers or people that rolled over an old 401k like I did. I do have the option to move the non taxable rollover IRA into my current 401K. Can I rollover the rollover to my 401k anytime this year or should I have done that before I converted to the Roth? In other words, when does the IRS make the determination of basis? At the time of conversion or at the end of the year.
Thanks
Permalink Submitted by Alan Spross on Thu, 2010-04-01 21:01
The end of the year.
Therefore, if your current employer will accept a rollover of your rollover IRA, that balance will not be included on the year end 8606 which determines how much of your conversion is taxable. (Ref Inst for Form 8606, for line 6 on page 6).
In fact, if the plan will accept the pre tax balance of your other IRA as well, it will further reduce the taxable portion of your conversion. However, many plans will accept only rollover IRAs back into an employer plan because they are afraid of inadvertantly receiving after tax amounts, which they cannot accept. But it might be worth a try.
Permalink Submitted by Janet Ulrich on Thu, 2010-04-01 22:03
Thank you.
It is a relief to know there is a way out of this. The confusion began with line 6 of the 8606. It states in part “PLUS ANY OUTSTANDING ROLLOVERS” I did not know what ‘outstanding’ meant, unless I was to first judge my rollover on quality. (Outstanding, Very Good, Fair, Poor). Just kidding. What does the term ‘outstanding’ mean? Is a rollover IRA the same thing as a TIRA?
Permalink Submitted by mk foss on Thu, 2010-04-01 22:26
An outstanding rollover is one that was incomplete at year end. For example if someone withdrew $40,000 on November 15 – the 60 day period would not have ended by December 31. If in fact those funds were rolled over on January 5 for example, the $40,000 would be an outstanding rollover.
Not as complete as Alan but perhaps an outstanding explanation.