moving trad. ira contr to roth

[Guest mrojava7]

In 1998, I converted my traditional IRA to a Roth. Since then I have been contributing the maximum to a traditional IRA. I would like to withdraw my 2002 contribution to my traditional IRA and deposit in the Roth IRA. Both are held at the same brokerage.

How do I go about doing this?

[Appleby]

The cleanest way to this is as a recharacterization. Talk to your IRA custodian/trustee about how to get this accomplished. This is effect treats the contribution as if it was made to the Roth IRA in the first place. Bear in mind that you must meet certain income requirements in order to be able to make a contribution to a Roth IRA- if you did not meet these income requirements for 2002, then the contribution cannot be moved to the Roth IRA…until a later year, when your income falls below $100,000 at which point you may convert your Traditional IRA balance (or a portion of it) to your Roth IRA.

See http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/page/0,,id=10...233,00.html#T80 for information on making contributions to a Roth IRA