Need help from experts here. I have about $3K in traditional IRA that I contributed 5 years ago, post tax. I want to start doing backdoor Roth IRA this year. I understand I can contribute $6K into a traditional IRA and immediately move this to Roth IRA account. But I am confused about that $3K that I currently have in a traditional IRA. Can I leave that $3K alone, open a new traditional IRA account, contribute $6K and move to Roth IRA immediately? Or does that 3K have any implications for me?
If you only have $3,000 in traditional now, I would start by converting all of that to ROTH. You will owe taxes on the entire balance when you convert it to Roth, but it will grow tax free from there. Then you can start making your $6,000 per year contributions of after tax money to a traditional IRA and then immediately have them transferred to your ROTH.
Coach
Also, to your second question, you’d need a backdoor option sooner. Once you hit the phase out (125k now I believe) you could contribute the Roth maximum, then the rest to a traditional IRA. Really though, if you don’t have a traditional IRA already, the backdoor option is practically the same thing as contributing direct to a Roth.
Coach
When you add the 6k, your total will be 9k even if you have it in multiple accounts. This is where the pro-rata rule comes in. If you convert 6k to Roth, 4k will be from those new contributions and 2k will be from existing amounts.
Note I didn’t say 2k will be taxable. That depends on how much of your existing contributions were after tax money, but any gains they have will be taxable.
Clear as mud?
Coach
The other option is to rollover your existing 3k IRA to your 401k. Then you start from $0 for the backdoor Roth.
Did you contribute $3k and it’s still only $3k? Is convert that and just pay the $1k taxes to be done with it.
Pro rata applies to everything in your name, not just an account level.
Will depend how well you can back up documentation on the traditional funds not having been deducted.
When you contributed 5yrs ago, did you take the deduction on your taxes?
Ah, that’s good info. But a tricky situation. Did you file the paperwork to show that? If you have the paperwork, you’ll only pay taxes on gains. That’s why people do a backdoor immediately. Avoids messiness.
What’s the risk in backdoor? Have heard you need to wait to make it “not obvious” you are doing so. Also there may be a chance years down the road you get dinged for it.