Can you elect to have an IRA contribution nondeductible?

Was hoping someone here has an answer to a question that has been giving me fits. Taxpayer is not enrolled in an employer plan and has W-2 wages of $250k. They cannot make a direct Roth IRA contribution due to the income limitation so they would like to make a backdoor Roth contribution but putting $6,000 into a Traditional IRA.

Under the IRA deductibility rules this would be a deductible contribution because they aren't covered by an employer plan but can they elect to treat the $6,000 as a nondeductible 2020 contribution then convert that over to a Roth IRA in 2021 tax-free? Or would they be required to deduct the $6,000 on the 2020 tax return and report the $6,000 conversion amount as 2021 taxable income?

I don't know if you can voluntarily report the $6,000 as nondeductible on Form 8606 or if only contributions deemed nondeductible under the Traditional IRA deduction rules are treated as nondeductible. Any ideas?

It is my understanding that anyone can elect to make a nondeductible IRA. You are not required to take the deduction on your tax return. Just file the 8606. Your client should be able to do the nondeductible and then convert to a ROTH. However, be careful if client has other IRA's!

It is my understanding that anyone can elect to make a nondeductible IRA. You are not required to take the deduction on your tax return. Just file the 8606. Your client should be able to do the nondeductible and then convert to a ROTH. However, be careful if client has other IRA's!

This is my understanding as well. I have a client that with PPP forgiveness being taxable (or so we thought at that time), they recharacterized their Roth contributions to a Traditional IRA as they were over the Roth income limit. When PPP forgiveness was deemed to be non-taxable, they no longer were over the income threshold that disallowed a Roth contribution. We checked the box in the software to make the IRA contributions non-deductible and converted to a Roth IRA.