IRA contribution question

[vinniekan]

Long time reader, first time poster.

 

I am currently a fellow and realize that I have one more year of lower income left before attending salary and cannot contribute to a Roth IRA anymore. I am planning to contribute the max to Roth. I just recently learned about the Backdoor IRA. My questions are:

1.) If I contribute max to Roth IRA already this year (2017), am I allowed to contribute to an traditional IRA then do a Backdoor conversion immediately to Roth? My intuition tells me no...but I want to ask to be sure

2.) Regardless, I understand that you can contribute to IRA up to 04/15/18 for it to count for 2017, is that the same for Backdoor conversion? (e.g. contribution to traditional IRA then backdoor convert before 04/15/18 to count for 2017?

 

Thanks!

[DMFA]

1. You get $5,500 to contribute to *all* traditional or Roth IRAs. So if you made $5,500 to the Roth, there's nothing left for traditional.

2. You can contribute for 2017 up to April 2018 and would reflect it on 2017's taxes, even though you wouldn't deduct anything. You report conversions for the calendar year they're done in. So if you did a backdoor Roth *for* 2017 *in* 2018, you'd report $5,500 basis on your 2017 taxes and report the conversion on your 2018 taxes.