In our previous blog post, we showed from tax filing perspective, it's best to do the contribution to traditional IRA and backdoor conversion to Roth IRA at the same year. In fact, there could be more complications, see discussion below.
You have decided to make a non-deductible contribution to traditional IRA this year, then do a backdoor Roth IRA conversion, but alas, you already have a traditional IRA, SEP-IRA or SIMPLE IRA account with money inside it. Now what? You have two options.
a. Convert all of them to Roth IRA
This makes the whole thing easy, just follow the 3 simple steps as we outlined and you are done. However, you will owe tax on the entire amount of conversions because they are all pre-tax contributions.
b. Do Not convert the pre-tax contribution to Roth IRA
In this case, you need to first rollover all these pre-existing and pre-tax contribution money to another place, such as your employer-sponsored 401k, 403b or 457 plans. The good news is IRS allows such rollover and most employer-sponsored retirement plans accept such rollover money.
You have decided to make a non-deductible contribution to traditional IRA this year, then do a backdoor Roth IRA conversion, but alas, you already have a traditional IRA, SEP-IRA or SIMPLE IRA account with money inside it. Now what? You have two options.
a. Convert all of them to Roth IRA
This makes the whole thing easy, just follow the 3 simple steps as we outlined and you are done. However, you will owe tax on the entire amount of conversions because they are all pre-tax contributions.
b. Do Not convert the pre-tax contribution to Roth IRA
In this case, you need to first rollover all these pre-existing and pre-tax contribution money to another place, such as your employer-sponsored 401k, 403b or 457 plans. The good news is IRS allows such rollover and most employer-sponsored retirement plans accept such rollover money.
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