So…apparently I was supposed to file a form 8606 for both years I’ve done a backdoor Roth IRA. Oops. (Help! 
)
I found an article that says I can just send in the form by itself without ammending my prior year taxes, but I don’t see that clearly spelled out in the IRS instructions. Has anyone done this? Do I need to file the prior 8606 before I complete this year’s taxes? If I call the IRS help line will they be able to work through this with me?
Here’s the article I read and the IRS guidelines:
Some extra background
This is our third year doing a backdoor Roth
- Two years ago (2016 taxes) we used H&R Block software and it missed this form
- Last year (2017 taxes) we used a tax service and I specifically asked if there was anything extra we needed for the backdoor Roth since it was the first year with a distribution shown, but they said no (and I shouldn’t have believed them since the whole thing was terrible and we found a lot of mistakes during the process…but live and learn)
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This year (2018 taxes) I’m much more on top of tax law since I certified to volunteer through VITA. I decided to use TurboTax for my own taxes since they should be relatively simple. My estimated refund was smaller than I expected and when I looked into the forms, it’s because I don’t have any established basis in my traditional IRA. It’s very clear to me that TurboTax is calculating everything correctly and the mistake is mine. I actually have a basis of $5500 but I can’t prove that since I didn’t file 8606 last year or the year before.
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I haven’t been doing this either. Yikes! I haven’t filed for 2018 yet, but I need to do 2016 and 2017’s forms too. 
I called the IRS today and here’s the information I got*
- It is indeed ok to just send in the form 8606 for the prior years on it’s own (no 1040x needed). I’m going to do this for 2016. The person I spoke to said to send it to the same address that you would send your normal and/or amended tax return.
- I’m going to need to file an amended 2017 return since my tax burden will change so I can just include form 8606 as part of the amended return
- They said to go ahead and file normally for 2018 even though I haven’t sent in the 2016 or 2017 8606 forms yet.
*I am not a tax attorney/accountant, and I don’t work for the IRS so please don’t take this as any sort of official tax advice.
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Thank you! Better than getting audited later because I hosed it up 
Have you been able to get one of the services online to kick out an 8606? It’s likely user error, but I’m trying with both Credit Karma and Turbo Tax and neither is creating an 8606.
Yikes! Looks like we only filed it once since 2014!
I think you may only need to file it when you have a basis to carry over? So if you contributed to a Roth in Jan-April for the following year you need it but if you contribute before the end of the tax year you may not?
I can’t believe I first posted this in March! For anyone curious, we sent in the 8606 forms for 2016 on their own and never heard anything back (so I’m assuming it’s fine). We also filed amended fed and state returns for 2017 that included the missing form and JUST FINALLY got them both back along with a nice refund and interest a couple weeks ago.
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I did do the contribution the following year, but according to the internet, you need to file the 8606 so that the government knows what your basis is and doesn’t tax you way down the line!
I spent all afternoon figuring out 5 years of the form for each of us and trying to track down what our accountant did and TurboTax and whether we overpaid in taxes. For a while I thought we overpaid because the accountant put down $11K of IRA withdrawals in 2015, but then there’s nothing on the tax line. So I don’t think we did overpay— if we did, it would be too late to amend. Basically I’m really annoyed and confused.