Methodology, reviewers, what this site is and isn't.
NIACalc is a US-market tax-utility hub for IRA, Roth IRA, and HSA excess-contribution remediation. It is a published reference. It is not a CPA firm, law firm, financial-advisory service, or affiliated with the IRS.
What we are NOT
Not a CPA firm
We do not prepare your tax return. We do not represent you in front of the IRS. The calculator is reference math; your return preparer signs on the line.
Not a law firm
Every statute on the site links to its primary source. Reading those statutes here does not establish an attorney-client relationship. For legal advice on your situation, retain a tax attorney.
Not affiliated with the IRS
We are an independent reference site. We cite IRS publications and statutes; we are not endorsed, sponsored, or operated by the IRS.
Not financial advice
The calculator computes what the regulation says. Whether the corrective distribution is the right move for your overall financial plan is a different question — for that, talk to a fiduciary.
Methodology — how we verify citations
Primary sources only
Every cited URL points to either irs.gov or law.cornell.edu (Cornell LII reproduces the U.S. Code and CFR verbatim with current amendments). Third-party paraphrase aggregators (financial-blog summaries, AI-generated explainers, secondary commentaries) are out-of-bounds — they cannot serve as citation chain endpoints.
Monthly verification cron
Statute citations and custodian process notes are re-verified monthly. Each entry on /sources shows its last-verifieddate. The calculator's tax-year-specific limits are revised within 7 days of an IRS announcement.
What disqualifies a source
- Third-party paraphrase aggregators
- Press-release summaries of IRS actions (we go to the underlying release)
- AI-generated tax-explainer pages without verifiable primary citations
- Custodian marketing copy that paraphrases statute (we link to the statute)
Calculator engine
Calculations follow 26 CFR §1.408-11(a)(1) and IRS Notice 2000-39. The calculator runs entirely client-side; balance figures never leave your browser. The engine reproduces 9 IRS-published examples to the cent (Notice 2000-39 Examples 1–4, §1.408-11(d) Examples 1–2, Pub 590-A Worksheet 1-4 illustrated, plus 4 edge-case tests + 2 §4973 excise tests = 15/15 passing).
How we research
Every claim on this site is traceable to a verified primary source. The full citation manifest — what each source covers, the verbatim quote we drew from it, and the verification date — is the single source of truth for the site's content. The /sources page is the canonical surfacing of that manifest, grouped by source type (statute / regulation / IRS notice / publication / form / custodian).
When we add or change content, we (a) identify the primary source that supports the claim, (b) fetch the source directly from irs.gov / law.cornell.edu, (c) extract the verbatim language, (d) record the verification date, and (e) only then write the user-facing copy. If a claim cannot be sourced this way, we either don't make it or we explicitly flag it as unverified.
Custodian process pages follow the same standard with one extension: where a custodian's public documentation does not surface the procedure (Alto, Rocket Dollar, Lively as of 2026-05-04), we say so on the page rather than guess. “Could not verify” is a valid published outcome.
Also relevant
- Sources — the full citation manifest, grouped by source type and dated by last verification.
- Contact — editorial corrections, sponsorship, press, mailing address.
- Disclaimer — the formal “informational, not tax advice” statement.
- Run the NIA calculator — the same engine the methodology section describes, client-side.