This reports employee payments of $600 or more for the year for services performed (even if the employee is related to the employer). It shows the amounts withheld for income, Social Security, and Medicare tax withheld. You can add your W-2 form under "Income" > "Employee income" when you're in the filing flow.
Breaking down the boxes:
- Box a: Your Social Security number.
- Box b: Employer's Identification Number (EIN) — Employer's unique tax ID number.
- Box c: Employer's address — The address of your employer.
- Box d: Control number — May be empty. If it's not, it's a code that your company uses to identify your W-2 in their records.
- Box e and f: Your name and address.
- Box 1: Wages, tips, other compensation — The total amount of wages, tips, and other compensation.
- Box 2: Federal income tax withheld — How much federal income tax was taken out of your paychecks.
- Box 3: Social Security wages — How much of your pay was subject to Social Security taxes (usually up to a certain limit).
- Box 4: Social Security tax withheld — How much you actually paid in Social Security taxes.
- Box 5: Medicare wages and tips — How much of your pay was subject to Medicare taxes. There's no wage limit for Medicare tax.
- Box 6: Medicare tax withheld — How much you actually paid in Medicare taxes.
- Box 7: Social Security tips — Reported tip income to your employer goes here.
- Box 8: Allocated tips — Tip income that your employer assigned to you (this is not common for most jobs).
- Box 9: Verification code — Used to verify the W-2 data submitted to the Social Security Administration.
- Box 10: Dependent care benefits — Benefits like childcare provided by your employer.
- Box 11: Nonqualified plans — Amounts distributed to you from your employer’s nonqualified deferred compensation plan or nongovernmental section 457 pension plan.
- Box 12: Deferred compensation and other compensation — Various form codes go here.
- Box 13: Checkboxes for statutory employee, retirement plan, and third-party sick pay.
- Box 14: Other — Catch-all box for other things your employer wants to report, like union dues or health insurance premiums.
- Box 15-20: State and local tax information — Covers how much you made and how much tax was withheld for your state and local taxes.