ACCOUNTING FOR TRADITIONAL IRA WITHDRAWALS

RED16

Monthly I withdraw from my Traditional IRA and download my investment transactions as well as my checking transactions. As a result, in the investment account, I get 3 lines - State Tax w/h and paid ("Withdraw"), Fed Tax w/h and paid ("Withdraw"), and finally the net remaining (after tax w/h) transferred ("WithdrwX") to my checking acct. In my monthly reporting, I want to categorize the total amount (sum of these 3) as income, and categorize the tax w/h as such in the tax category. Unfortunately, the transfer ("WithdrwX") from my IRA results in only net remaining amount, rather than the gross distribution, being shown in my income category. I use a memorized checking transaction to account for this, but because only the net after tax transfers from the IRA, thereby understating my income by the amounts of tax w/h. Also, this process results in overstating the withdrawals in my investment account. So far, I've tried a variety of workarounds in an attempt to deal with this but nothing seems to solve the problem. I welcome any suggestions and ideas all of you may have to deal with this. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

NotACPA

Transfer the gross, pre-tax, amount to your checking ... then split that transaction in checking to show the withholdings there.

RED16

Thanks, That works but I thinks that I'll have to delete the individual 3 lines that download from Fidelity each month. True?

NotACPA

True.  The issue here is that a non-taxable account (such as your IRA) can't show tax related transactions other that amounts transferred in or out ... so those transactions must take place in a taxable account.