[nicolas1938]

Years ago, 1993, 1994, I invested in an Ira with after tax money as I was not elighible for pre tax Ira. Since then I have commingled those pre-tax and after tax Ira's . How are these two Ira investments reported when it is time to withdraw at 70 1/2.

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

If you made it clear to the IRA custodian that the money invested was for a non-deductible IRA, then the custodian shold tell you which part of the distribution is subject to tax and which is not.

If you did not, then you will have to figure it out yourself and try to get the custodian to acept your computations.

[ebaines]

Not to worry. When you make a withdrawal you use form 8606 to determine how much of your withdrawal is taxable, and that calculation requires you to think of all your IRA accounts as if they were all co-mingled into one big pot. In other words, when you make a withdrawal the tax calculation does not allow you to specify whether the money you withdraw first is pre-tax contribution, after-tax contribution, or earnings. For example, suppose over the years you made $4000 in after-tax contributions, $2000 in pre-tax contributions, and have earnings of $14000, so that the net value of all your IRA is $20K. Hence out of the $20K you have already paid tax on $4000, or 20% of it. Now, if you make a withdrawal of, say $5000, the IRS assumes that 20% of it is attributable to your after-tax contribution, and the rest is either pre-tax contributions or earnings, and so you end up paying taxes on 80% of the withdrawal. Here's a web site that explains this perhaps better than I:

How IRA Distributions Are Taxed

The reason why it is generally advised that you keep your IRAs funded with pre-tax money separate from those funded with after-tax money is that it can simplify accounting if you were to roll these accounts over to other retirement vehicles, such as your 401(k) plan at work or a Roth IRA.

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

Ebaines explained it MUCH better than me.

My compliments!

[MukatA]

It appears that you have not filed the Form 8606. You should file 8606 with your next tax return. Here is some info from IRS Publication 17.
To designate contributions as nondeductible, you must file Form 8606 with your tax return. When you file, you can even designate otherwise deductible contributions as nondeductible. You must file Form 8606 to report nondeductible contributions even if you do not have to file a tax return for the year. You will have to pay a $50 penalty if you do not file a required Form 8606, unless you can prove that the failure was due to reasonable cause.

Failure to report nondeductible contributions.
If you do not report nondeductible contributions, all of the contributions to your traditional IRA will be treated as deductible. All distributions from your IRA will be taxed unless you can show, with satisfactory evidence, that nondeductible contributions were made.

Penalty for overstatement.
If you overstate the amount of nondeductible contributions on your Form 8606 for any tax year, you must pay a penalty of $100 for each overstatement, unless it was due to reasonable cause.

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

Noted!