Over income for Roth IRA (2025, first time MFJ) sanity check on backdoor fix

Hey all, looking for a sanity check here. Before anyone say this is AI, i used gpt to go over grammar and sentences.

For the 2025 tax year, it’s the first time my wife and I are filing jointly (doing taxes now), and I realized our combined income puts us over the Roth IRA limit.

I had already contributed the full amount to a Roth for 2025, so now I’m trying to fix it correctly.

From what I understand, the right approach is:

– Recharacterize the 2025 Roth contribution → Traditional IRA

– Then convert it back to Roth (backdoor)

Some details:

– By the time I recharacterize, the contribution will have some gains (roughly $1k)

– I already completed a backdoor Roth for 2026 earlier this year

– My Traditional IRA balance is currently $0 (everything has been converted)

My understanding so far:

– Recharacterization itself isn’t taxable

– When I convert, I only pay tax on the gains ($1k)

– I can convert the full amount (contribution + gains)

– Since my Traditional IRA is $0 at year-end, pro-rata shouldn’t apply

Questions:

1. Does this all sound correct?

2. Since both conversions (fixing 2025 + my 2026 backdoor) happen in 2026, do they just get combined on my 2026 taxes?

3. Anything I should watch out for (forms, timing, common mistakes)?

Just want to make sure I handle this cleanly and don’t create a bigger issue later. Appreciate any input.