If you’ve changed jobs recently or have been taking some time away from the grind, you may be quite happy to have left your past employer behind. Even if you left things amicably, you may have moved far away or simply want to keep moving forward in your career and life.
However, there’s one thing that you’ll need to look back over your shoulder for, and that’s your W-2 form. Your employer has to provide you with this form if you worked for them in the past year. So, if you want to know how to get a W-2 from a previous employer, this article has got you covered.
What is a W-2 Form?
There’s a good reason to get your W-2 form from your previous employer – you can’t do your taxes without it! The reason for this is in the actual name of the document. While W-2 is the code given to this form by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the name of this form is the Wage and Tax Statement.
You can already see the importance of this form through this name because every year, you need to file your tax return and give the amounts you earned for the year. You also need to indicate how much your employer withheld in income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes. Form W-2 helps you do this.
Your employer is required to fill out and provide you with a W-2 if they paid you at least $600 during the year and withheld taxes from your paychecks. The W-2 is therefore a statement from your employer of how much they paid you and how much they remitted in taxes on your behalf.
If the amount of your tax withholdings is greater than what you’re obligated to pay for the year, you’ll receive a tax refund, something no one will say no to. That’s why you need to get your W-2 from your employer and file it along with your federal and state tax return.
How to Get Your W-2 Form
If you worked for your employer this year, they are obligated to provide you with your W-2. While this is customarily provided by the end of the year, employers actually have until January 31st to get this form to you. They also need to send copies of the form to your state or local tax authority as well as to the Social Security Administration. If you don’t receive your Form W-2 by the end of January, here’s what you can do:
Request Your W-2 From Your Employer
If you had an HR contact in the past, try to contact them directly. If not, phone or email your company’s HR or payroll department and ask for your form to be sent to you. If you’ve changed addresses, you should inform them so they can potentially re-send the form.
If, however, there’s a reason why you can’t contact your employer and get your W-2 from them (the business is closed, personal reasons, disputes, etc.), you may have to resort to a stronger method.
Contact the IRS to Help You Get Your W-2
If it’s the end of the year or even the end of January and you’re still waiting to get your W-2 from your past employer, it’s time to contact the IRS. Because your employer is required by law to provide you with this form, the IRS will help you by getting in touch with your employer for you and requesting the form.
When you call the IRS, they ask that you have your personal information ready, including your address, phone number, and SSN, as well as the dates that you worked for your employer in the past year. It will also help to have your employer’s name, address, and phone number ready, as well as their Employer Identification Number (EIN), which you can normally find written on your pay stubs.
What If You Don’t Get Your W-2 In Time?
The IRS will contact your employer to ask for the W-2, but there’s still a chance you won’t get it in time to file your taxes, which are due by April 15th. You must still file your taxes. However, when you raise the issue of not having your W-2 with the IRS, they will send you another form, Form 4852 or the Substitute for Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement.
On this form, you’ll need to give the reason why you’re not filing your W-2. You can then complete this substitute form by giving details of the income you received during the year from your employer as well as the state and federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax your employer withheld. You can calculate these amounts using either your collected pay slips for the year or your final paystub.
What If You Received an Incorrect W-2 Form?
In case your employer sent you a W-2 form but you know it’s incorrect because it doesn’t match your earnings and withholdings, follow the same steps. In either case, you’re required to try to contact the employer to ask for a correction and then contact the IRS if you don’t receive the corrected form on time.
W-2 Penalties
Your employer will face penalties for either sending you your form late or creating an incorrect form, or both. They have to provide you with copies of the W-2 by January 31st and also send copies to your state or local tax authority as well as the Social Security Administration. They can be fined for providing these copies late to those authorities and to you as different recipients.
They’re fined:
- $60 per receiver for providing W-2s up to 30 days late
- $130 per receiver for being 31 days late and up to August 1st
- $330 per receiver when they provide W-2s later than August 1st or not at all.
The IRS will check the information on the W-2 and ensure it matches other claims. If the earnings on the W-2 are off by over $100 or the deductions are wrong by more than $25, the form is considered incorrect, and the employer can be fined $340.
How to Get Your Old W-2 Forms from Past Employers
Some business and banking activities might require you to show proof of past income and tax payments, sometimes even for the past five to ten years. You should always keep copies of your W-2s, but if you’ve misplaced them or they’ve been damaged, you still have several options.
The first option is to contact your past employer as we’ve already suggested and ask if they have their copies of your W-2s on file. If they do, you can ask them to send you copies and they may or may not assess a fee for doing so since they’re not obligated to provide this service.
Another option is to contact the IRS by phone or email and request your tax transcripts. You can request Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return, which the IRS will post to you. You can then fill this form out and file it to ask specifically for your W-2s, which costs $50.
Alternatively, you can request Form 4506, Request For Copy of Tax Return, to receive copies of your full tax returns. Each year’s return you request will cost $30.
What’s on Form W-2?
Form W-2 contains important information about your earnings and tax withholdings, which you need to use to file both your federal and state tax returns. Your employer should fill out the following information:
Boxes a-f
Boxes a-f give your personal information (name, address, SIN), your employer’s information (name, address), and their EIN.
Boxes 1-20
Boxes 1-20 provide codes and dollar amounts relating to your earnings, other taxable income, and the taxes your employer withheld from your paychecks:
- Box 1: The wages, tips, and other compensation subject to federal income tax that you were paid over the course of the year
- Box 2: The federal income tax withheld from your paychecks
- Boxes 3-6: Your total income subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes
- Box 7: Any tips you earned that are subject to Social Security tax
- Box 8: Tips that were allocated to you
- Box 9: normally left blank
- Box 10-14: other earnings that may or may not be taxable, as well as special employee conditions and statuses
- Box 15-18: Your employer’s state tax information, your state taxable income, and state taxes withheld from your paychecks
- Box 19-20: Local tax information and taxes withheld from your paychecks
Summary of How to Get a W-2 From a Past Employer
If you still have contact and a good relationship with your previous employer, it can be simple to contact them and request your W-2 if you haven’t received it yet. If not, you can call the IRS and file a request for their assistance in requesting this form for you. Either way, you need your W-2 to help you file your tax returns by April 15th so don’t wait until it’s too late!
