Personal Investments • Portfolio Review Request

There have been a lot of good suggestions in this thread. Consider breaking it down into phases:

1. consolidate the taxable accounts at Vanguard and come up with a selling strategy.

2. Decide what to invest in.

3. Figure out your TIRA basis. Rollover the pretax TIRA balance to your 401k no later than 12/31/24. Convert the TIRA basis to Roth IRA as soon as possible to start tax-free growth.

4. Decide whether to do an annual backdoor Roth or to contribute the $7k to Taxable. Clean up any
Form 8606 reporting issues. It would be preferable to determine whether your historical Forms 8606 are correct before you file your 2023 return so you can use the correct 12/31/22 TIRA basis for your 2023 Form 8606 Line 2.

… Decide whether to do an annual backdoor Roth or to contribute the $7k to Taxable. Clean up any
Form 8606 reporting issues. It would be preferable to determine whether your historical Forms 8606 are correct before you file your 2023 return so you can use the correct 12/31/22 TIRA basis for your 2023 Form 8606 Line 2. …

Thank you for the collated summary. Lots of insight and commentary on the TIRA so I'll make a point of digging into it and reviewing this with my tax accountant next week.

Not all tax preparers are well-versed about Form 8606 or have a tax questionnaire that asks about non-deductible TIRA contributions. Most also bill by the hour.

In advance of your meeting next week, consider:
1. pulling out your copy of the 2022 Form 1040 (or the filing for the most recent year in which you made a non-deductible contribution) now to see whether Form 8606 was filed.
2. check the amount on Form 8606 Line 14 for your TIRA basis as of 12/31/xx (12/31/22 for a 2022 Form 1040). This amount should be the cumulative non-deductible TIRA contributions that you have made assuming no distributions.
3. the cumulative TIRA non-deductible contributions should be equal to the sum of the Form 5498s issued to you. You should be keeping these Form 8606s and Form 5498s in a tax carryforward file until the Roth IRA is emptied in the future.
4. email your tax preparer in advance of the meeting if there are no Form 8606s filed or if the Form 8606 12/31/22 basis does not agree with your contribution records. This way your tax preparer is prepared and you can discuss/resolve at the meeting.

Tax software often keeps a history of IRA basis additions by year. If you run into issues with #3, you can ask for the IRA history to be sent to you prior to the meeting to see if you have missed a contribution/5498, etc.

Statistics: Posted by dayfornight — Tue Feb 27, 2024 4:00 pm — Replies 21 — Views 2036