Can someone specify the IRS reg stating that a Roth IRA prior-year contribution must be made BEFORE filing your tax return. If a person files their return in March and decides to make a prior-year contribution to a Roth IRA before April 15th, they are not affecting the amount of taxable income nor the amount of tax due. Traditional IRA contributions naturally must be made before filing, but I've not seen any citation of the Roth IRA falling under the same rule.

Hope you got my message yesterday that the same rules apply to Roth IRAs as apply to traditional IRAs because of Section 408A©(7) of the Internal Revnue Code itself.

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I don't understand -- since you don't have to report a Roth contribution when filing your return (no deductions), what difference does it make whether you made the contribution prior to or after filing your return, as long as you met the eligibility requirements and did it before April 15th? Or am I wrong?

The rules say that the deadline is the DUE DATE of your return, not the day you actually FILE it.



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John L. Olsen, CLU, ChFC
Olsen Financial Group
St. Louis, MO

Reference source - See page 7 in Publication 590 which states that you can file your return before you actually make your contribution as long as the contribution is made by the due date for the return not including extensions.

is anyone familiar with the recgaracterizing a non-deductible IRA contribution to a Roth IRA before the extended due date of the return. The Regs. seem to speak of IRA's "in general". It seems the Regs allow this recharacterization of the contribution as long as the AGI is no problem. Any thoughts?

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Yes, you can recharacterized a nondeductible IRA contribution (plus related earnings) to a Roth IRA contribution as long as:
1. You do it before the due date of the return (plus extensions) and
2. You otherwise meet the eligibility criteria for making a Roth IRA contribution for the tax year for which you originally made the traditional IRA contribution.