Avoid W-2 Reporting Errors

08/19/08

If you’re hustling to get those W-2s out the door on time, take a few minutes to check your work. There are few things worse than cleaning up mistakes made on forms you’ve submitted.

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), these are among the most frequent errors employers make when reporting wages for the year:

The Employer Identification Number is incorrect or missing.

Employee names and/or Social Security numbers are wrong.

The form contains titles like Mr. or Dr. (never include titles).

Wage or tax fields on wage reports are empty.

The W-2 form is last year’s version.

The pension plan box is not checked when the company has a plan.

Reports are out of balance with actual payments made, usually because of:

Using the maximum Social Security wageamount for a prior year.

Limiting the taxation of Medicare wages by the maximum Social Security wage amount. (All Medicare wages are taxable.)

Making decimal mistakes.

Including tips in the Social Securitywage field as well as in the tip field.

Tip: If you are submitting W-2s in either magnetic media or electronic format, go to www.ssa.gov/employer/ accuwage and download the ssa’s free Accu-Wage software. It tests for over two hundred different errors.