I wasn't sure where to ask this question, but thought I'd try the post-FIRE people.
Basically, I want to make sure it's legally okay to move money from a tax-advantaged retirement account into a Roth when you have no earned income.
DH and I are both retired, ages 61 and 63, and we have started drawing living expenses from our retirement accounts, which are RO IRAs. We've been putting those withdrawals into a money market account and holding about 2 years' expenses there, moving money into our checking account as needed, but I've been thinking it would be good to move some of the IRA withdrawals directly into our Roth IRAs instead so we will have a bigger stash that doesn't require RMDs (looking at 70-1/2 uncomfortably soon).
I know that yes, you can do this and you will have to pay taxes on the withdrawals (fine), but I want to make sure you don't have to be working and have earned income in the tax year when you do the transaction. I don't want to get hit with some kind of penalty. I've searched quite a bit and can't find an answer to this specific question. I'm going to call the financial institution to ask them, but it's a long wait to get through right now. (DH called them yesterday and --- grrr --- didn't ask this question.)
TIA