back door roth screw up

[2lazy2retire]

In December of 2016 I made a contribution to a traditional IRA with the intention of converting to Roth as part of the back door strategy - found my self overseas and one thing led to another and no action was taking - we are now in 2017 with money still sitting in the Traditional IRA - what are my options

thks

[MustacheAndaHalf]

It's the same situation: when you convert you pay tax on any gains.  It's just that as you allow it to make gains, you make the tax impact higher.  Figure out your gain, and that's what you will pay ordinary income tax on if you decide to convert.

[Indexer]

Mustacheandahalf is correct. You will likely have taxes on the growth.

Steps:
1. contribute to Traditional IRA. There is a time limit for this. You are bound by annual contribution limits.
2. convert to Roth. There is no time limit on this. You could take an IRA you've had for 20 years and convert it to a Roth. Actually, that was the intention of the rules. The backdoor Roth was a side effect.