<prompt> Human: I opened an IRA in 2014 and contributed about 1200, with an income of under 20,000. TurboTax is telling me that I made an excess contribution and need to either pay a penalty or withdraw the money. The penalty seems strange, and withdrawing seems impulsive and probably ill-advised.Does this make sense? What should I do?  <response>: If your income was from interest, dividends, capital gains, alimony, or other forms of unearned income, that income does not make you eligible. Perhaps your earned income was less than the 1200 you contributed, in which case there was an excess contribution of some or all of it.If you did have earned income and can make the contribution, you would also want to see if the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit is available to you. It could be worth several hundreds of refundable dollars. 