Small Business question regarding correcting a W2
March 4, 2016 3:12 PM   Subscribe

So, I sent the W3 and W2s to SSA for 2015. Today I get a call from a employee who tells me his SSN is incorrect on his W2. He did tell me he had not filed his taxes yet. I use Quickbooks Payroll Service and have access to the Annual Form W2C & W3C to make these corrections. I corrected the employee's SSN and start to process this form but am confused about filling it out - 1. It ask has corrections been made in Quickbooks? Well, YES to the SSN - is that what I need to check or would it be NO due to no changes on the wages, etc? 2. If I check NO it leaves all the wages, etc blank. I do check that it is a correction of the SSN but doesn't the employee need his wages, etc to show in this W2C? 3. If I check YES it then loads the Previous amount of wages, etc. Am I suppose to put anything in the Corrected Amount box? Quickbooks makes a statement to put 0.00 in the corrected fields if no corrections, but that doesn't look right to me - looks like I am telling them it is 0.00 now?

I just need to correct SSN, but I need to give the employee and SSA a correct copy of this form. I assume this is to replace the W2 I sent to SSA and employee previously - Can anyone help with this?
posted by just asking to Law & Government (2 answers total)
 
Best answer: If checking "No" to the Quickbooks question results in all of the Form W-2c dollar amount boxes being blank, that is what you should do.

The instructions for Form W-2c (page 24) says:
If you are correcting only an employee's name and/or SSN, complete Form W-2c boxes d through i. Do not complete boxes 1 through 20. Advise your employee to correct the SSN and/or name on his or her original Form W-2.

The corrected SSN goes in box (d), and the previously reported (incorrect) SSN goes in box (f). You are not reporting a correction to the amounts (boxes 1 through 20), so the IRS and SSA do not want the amounts reported on this form. They do not need confirmation that the amounts were previously reported correctly.

I just need to correct SSN, but I need to give the employee and SSA a correct copy of this form. I assume this is to replace the W2 I sent to SSA and employee previously...

On the W-2c you are reporting corrections to the incorrect information only, and are not filing a full replacement of the original form. You do not need to give the employee and SSA a correct copy of the W-2, just this W-2c form showing the specific item(s) corrected. Your assumption was reasonable, but that is not what the IRS and SSA want you to do.
posted by Snerd at 4:31 PM on March 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you Snerd! I was really stressing about doing this right.
posted by just asking at 5:21 AM on March 5, 2016


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