What To Do If You Contribute Too Much to an HSA, IRA or 401k

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Hello friends, I’m Laura Adams, and this is the money girl podcast, where my mission is to help you live rich and love the journey. If you are ready for more knowledge, resources, and motivation to manage money, in the best way possible you are in the right place. I’m so glad that you’re here. And if you’re a longtime listener, you know what we do, we cover kind of like a mini-training. Every episode, it’s a wide variety of topics that we touch on.

Maybe credit debt, investing, real estate, business taxes, insurance, money management strategies, and lots more. And if you have just found the show, I’m so glad that you’re here. And I hope you’ll stick around by subscribing today’s show was inspired by Amanda M who says I contributed to my Roth IRA for 2020, but now I realize that my income will exceed the allowable annual limit.

Can I fix this error and use the money to contribute to a traditional IRA instead? Or do I have to pay the penalty? Thanks for your question, Amanda. And congratulations on earning too much to qualify for a Roth IRA. That is a significant milestone that I’ll explain in this show. One important thing to know about various tax-advantaged accounts, such as retirement accounts, health savings accounts, and five 29 college savings accounts over contributions are not allowed, but they can be really easy to do by mistake.

I have over contributed to all of these accounts at some point and can tell you that it is easy to get them fixed for the most part, but you have to do it in a timely manner. So we’re going to cover Amanda’s question and explain, all the contribution limits for these various accounts and what happens when you over contribute to them.

You’ll learn how to easily correct an excess and avoid costly mistakes. If you act quickly. And as always, you’re going to find the notes for each show. Plus the full archive of podcasts. There are over 660 podcasts now in the archives. So there’s a lot there. It’s all in the money girl [email protected]. This is episode number 661. What to do if you contribute too much to an HSA IRA or 401k.

So let’s start with IRA since that’s what Amanda asked about. If you’re not familiar with this, it is short for an individual account, or you may also hear it referred to as an individual retirement arrangement. These are tax advantage savings vehicles that are designed for individuals. And they’re really one of my favorite retirement accounts because anyone with earned income qualifies to contribute even minors who have a job, it also offers more flexibility for taking withdrawals compared to other retirement accounts.

Now, I don’t recommend taking withdrawals from your retirement account until you retire, but it’s nice to have some flexibility if you need it. And no matter how much you earn, you can max out a traditional IRA every single year. However, as Amanda mentioned, there are annual income limits to qualify for a Roth IRA. Now, this does not apply to a traditional IRA. And what’s interesting is that it does not apply to other types of Roth retirement accounts. So for instance, other types might be a Roth 401k or a Roth four Oh three B. These do not have an annual income limit. So when you hear about the annual income limits, this is only for the Roth IRA. It’s very unique. Uh, and in that regard, you can only contribute to a Roth IRA when your modified adjusted gross income or Majaila for short is below certain limits.

So let’s review what those annual limits are for 2020 and 2021. So it’s going to depend on your tax filing status. If you are a single tax filer, you cannot make contributions to a Roth IRA. When you earn 139,000 or more. Now, this increases just slightly to 140,000 for 2021. So again, this is your magic, your adjusted gross income. If you’re married and you file taxes jointly, you can not make contributions to a Roth IRA when your household income is 200, $6,000 or more, and that will increase to 208,000 for 2021.

If you’re married and you file taxes separately, you really don’t get a whole lot of benefit from the Roth IRA. You can only make a reduced contribution when you have Majayang less than $10,000 and you’re ineligible when you earn more. So basically it means that married couples who file separate taxes really just don’t get to take advantage of a Roth IRA.

So now that you know who qualifies for a traditional and a Roth IRA, let’s discuss how much you can contribute and some ways to correct any excess for 2020 and 2021, you can contribute up to $6,000 to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA, or a combination of both. So it could be 3000 to a traditional IRA and 3000 to a Roth IRA. You can’t max out both of those. So your combined to all IRAs can be up to $6,000. Or if you’re over age 50, you can contribute a little more. You have an extra what’s called catch-up contribution of a thousand dollars. And that means you can contribute a total of 7,000 to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA, or a combination of both. When you’re over age 50, you can make contributions to an IRA at any time during the year, even up to the tax filing deadline for the previous tax year, and you’re never required to contribute.

Uh, so let me give you an example. Let’s say you want to max out your IRA for 2020. You can actually make your IRA contributions until April 15, 2021. So you have a little bit more time to make contributions for the previous tax year. Now, what happens if you have excess contributions? Well, unfortunately, they will get taxed at 6% per year for each year that they remain in your IRA. So it’s essential to act quickly when you realize that you have over contributed that’s important. So you pay as little as possible on the excess. So what do you do? Let me give you three ways to correct your error. The first is to withdraw the excess before your taxes are due. So before that April 15 deadline, or even if you have an extension that might be up until October 15. And if you realize that you did over contribute like Amanda, I recommend that you contact your IRA custodian to ask for help withdrawing the excess contributions.

As soon as you can, the reason being beside your original contributions, you have to also remove any investment income that those contributions earned. So that can get a little tricky. You’re going to need custodial help too, to get that figured out. If you complete the withdrawal of both the original contribution and earnings before your tax filing due date, it’s like you never put the funds in the account in the first place. And as I mentioned, also, note that you can extend your filing due date in any year up to October 15, all you have to do is file a form it’s form four eight, six, eight. That does not give you an extension of time to pay any taxes that you owe, but it does give you an extension of time to file. And another thing to consider is that if you make an over-contribution to an IRA, you may still owe tax.

If your excess contribution generated earnings, this is because you’ve also got to pay a 10% early withdrawal penalty on the earnings portion that you’re taking out. If you’re younger than age 59. So there are a few different things going on here. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re 40 years old and you make an excess IRA contribution of $500. If that $500 contribution earned $50 in investment income, you would need to withdraw $550 before your tax filing deadline to avoid an excess of 6%. You have to include the $50 of earnings in your gross income for the tax year. And because you’re younger than age, 59 and a half, you must pay an additional 10% early withdrawal penalty on your earnings that come to $5. So if you catch something quickly, the earnings and the potential withdrawal penalties are going to be pretty low.

So the key is to fix the error quickly, and your IRA custodian will send you form 10 99 are showing what amount of earnings are taxable when you make a correction so that you can submit it with your taxes. All right? So that’s the first way that you can make a correction on an IRA. The second way is to withdraw the excess six months after filing taxes. So let’s say you filed taxes for the year, and then you realize, Oh my gosh, I over contributed for last year. If you do that, you’ve got six months to correct it by again, withdrawing the contribution and the earnings. And you have to file an amended tax return by October 15th. And you do that using form 10 40 X again, get help from your custodian in that situation. All right, the third way to make a correction is to apply the excess to the following tax year.

You can ask your IRA custodian to apply any over contributions to the following year. As long as it doesn’t make you exceed the maximum allowable limit for that year. However, the 6% penalty still applies to excess amounts that remain in your account at the end of the year. So that may be an easy solution, but you know, it’s going to definitely cost you more than the other options that I’ve just covered for Amanda’s situation. I recommend that she make her Roth IRA correction right away. Once her excess contribution and earnings are returned to her, using them to make a contribution to a traditional IRA would be a very smart move. However, if Amanda also has a workplace retirement account, maybe a 401k, some or all of her traditional IRA contributions may not be tax-deductible. And this is also the case of the files taxes jointly with a spouse who has a retirement plan at work. And I’ve podcasted about this particular issue before. So if this is something you want to learn more about, I would recommend listening or reading to a show called 401k versus IRA. Should you pick one or have both retirement accounts that will help you learn more.

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If you’re over age 52, most workplace retirement plans in general, the plan custodian has procedures in place to prevent you from contributing too much to a workplace plan automatically. However, there are some situations that make it possible to over contribute such as having two jobs each with a retirement plan, or maybe you switched jobs during the year. It is your responsibility to make sure that you don’t contribute too much. So you want to keep an eye on it. And again, contact that custodian. If you’re even at all suspicious, that you’ve put too much in. Now, one thing to note is that employer matching funds, do not count toward the annual limits. So you can max out a retirement plan at work, regardless of how much your company kicks in, which is really nice. Okay. Another type of account that it’s pretty easy to over contribute to is an HSA.

This is a health savings account. You can open an HSA and make contributions to pay for qualifying medical expenses. If you are enrolled in a qualified high deductible health plan, and I’ve done many podcasts about HSA. So definitely search for those. If you’re interested in learning more, uh, but you know, no matter if you purchase a high deductible health plan on your own, or at work through a group plan, you own and manage an HSA as an individual, that means you don’t need permission from an employer or the IRS to set one up. And it stays with you. Even if you change jobs, you become unemployed or you lose your health plan. Tax-deductible contributions to an HSA can come from you from somebody else like a family member or your employer. When you spend the funds on qualified medical expenses like doctor co-pays and prescription medications, the contributions and earnings in the account can be taken out completely tax-free.

So this is an amazing account to use if you’re qualified, but I will say if you use the funds for non-qualified expenses, such as rent or food, there is a very high penalty. You have to pay a 20% penalty. So you want to make sure that you’re not putting money in an HSA that you’re going to need for everyday living expenses. More employers are offering high deductible health plans every year to help workers keep health premiums as low as possible. And these types of plans do work in your favor when you’re in relatively good health. And you’re not likely to spend the full deductible each year. So no matter if you buy a health policy on your own or through work, find out if it qualifies for an HSA, just like with retirement accounts, there are limits on how much you can contribute to an HSA each year for 2020, if you’ve got a qualifying plan just for yourself, the HSA contribution limit is $3,550.

If you have a family plan with either a spouse or kids or both on it, the limit is $7,100. Now next year, the HSA limits go up slightly to $3,600 for individuals and $7,200 for families. If you’re over age 55, you can contribute an additional $1,000. When you have either type of plan, you can make HSA contributions at any time during the year, even up to the tax filing deadline for the previous year, but you never have to make contributions. If you become uninsured or you no longer have a high deductible health plan, you can continue to spend your HSA. You just can’t make any new contributions to the account. One key feature of an HSA to understand is that the contribution limits apply to the total amount contributed by you, someone else, or your employer. So unlike employer matching on a workplace retirement account, any contributions that your employer kicks into your HSA do get included in your annual limit that can make it really easy to lose track and over contribute.

If your employer makes contributions that are not clearly defined, or maybe that vary from month to month. And this has happened to me, I have easily over contributed to an HSA due to those funds that are kicked in by somebody else. And the onus is on you natural employer to catch and correct excess contributions. If you over contribute to an HSA and you don’t correct it, you have to pay that same 6% penalty each year on the excess that remains in your account. But if you catch it before you file taxes, including any extensions, you can avoid the penalty by withdrawing the excess plus any investment or interest earnings in the account. Just like with retirement accounts, your excess HSA earnings are subject to tax. But again, if you catch an overage right away, the investment gain and tax due will likely be minimal. I also recommend contacting the administrator of your HSA to discuss, correcting an annual overage.

The custodian has to file form 10 99 S showing a distribution of excess contributions, and they have to correct your form 54 98 essay, which shows your annual HSA contribution. So there’s a bit of paperwork that they need to clean up on their end. Another option to correct excess HSA contributions is to apply them to a future year. Again, while rolling over funds to the next year is easy. The downside is that you still must pay the 6% penalty on excess amounts that remain in the account. As you can see, even making an honest mistake where the tax advantage account can get tricky. So be sure to get advice and get it quickly. I recommend that you put a note on your calendar every year to review your retirement accounts, your HSA, and any other tax advantage accounts that you have so that you’ve got plenty of time to make changes before the end of the year, that’ll make it as clean as possible.

And if you find a problem that you cannot get fixed before the new year, getting those excess contributions corrected in the first quarter of the following year is the next best option. You might have some tax to pay, but the faster your account gets cleaned up, the less you’ll have to pay. Amanda, thanks again for your question. And I hope this helps all of you make sure that you don’t over contribute to your accounts this year. If you have a money question or an idea for a future show topic, you know that I would love to hear it. All you have to do is call me. The number is (302) 364-0308. And you can leave your voice message on 24/7, or you can visit my [email protected]. Another great way to stay in touch is to join my private Facebook group called dominate your dollars. Just search for dominating your dollars on Facebook, or you can text me and I’ll send you an invitation text, the word dollars, D O L L AR S to the number three, three, four, four, four.

I hope to see you in the group. That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you next week until then here’s to living our richer life. Money girl is produced by the audio wizard, Steve Ricky Berg with editorial support from Karen Hertzberg. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, take a moment to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. We always ask for you to do that because it really means a lot to us. It’s an easy way to give back and also help new listeners find us. You might also like the backlist episodes and the show notes that are always available at Quickanddirtytips.com