r/tax•
edwina94

Withdraw or return excess contribution to trad IRA that I backdoored to Roth?

My spouse and I contributed in early 2025 to our traditional IRAs, and then we converted all funds via backdoor to our Roth IRAs (separate accounts for each of us). We have no earned income this year.

We've done this in past years because we were over the income limits with my job. I was laid off in 2024, but I had enough earned income by then. Was hoping to get a new job in 2025 to cover the contributions, but haven't been successful and most likely will not be since we're heading into December.

What should we do? Request a return of excess contribution (fill out the forms with Vanguard), or just withdraw the funds (contribution with gains)? Mainly, I'm not sure what the right step is, after having researched already - the backdoor conversion possible makes this more complicated. Or maybe not? TIA!

Posted Dec 1, 2025, 4:12 AM UTC

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