traditional IRA to Roth IRA
I just opened a traditional IRA this year and deposit some cash into it, but I found it can’t save the tax since my income is over the limit. So I am going to open a Roth IRA and transfer this money from the traditional account to the Roth account. In this case, do I need to pay any penalty fee or tax for the operation? Or there is a better way I could do to avoid the tax since I have not got any tax benefit from the traditional
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Fri, 2021-06-18 14:22
As long as your modified AGI is not too high for a Roth contribution, all you have to do after opening the Roth IRA account is to ask your IRA custodian to recharacterize your 2021 contribution as a Roth contribution. The contribution adjusted for any gain or loss will be transferred to the Roth IRA and treated as if you contributed to the Roth all along. There is no current tax or penalty to do this.
If this contribution was for 2020, you can only recharacterize it as above if you either filed your 2020 return by 5/17 or filed an extension by 5/17. Before proceeding further, please clarify the status of your 2020 return or extension and which year the contribution was for.