2017 Year End W-2 Box Descriptions for Employees Knowing how to read a Form W-2, or Wage and Tax Statement, can help you understand your total overall compensation, and also help you get a head start when preparing your taxes. A B C D E/F EMPLOYEE S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER This is your Social Security number. Double check to ensure it is correct. EMPLOYER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (EIN) This is your employer s unique tax identification number. An EIN is more or less the employer s equivalent of your Social Security number. EMPLOYER S NAME, ADDRESS, & ZIP CODE This identifies the name and legal address of your employer. The address may show your company s headquarters rather than its local address, if your company has multiple locations. CONTROL NUMBER This is an optional field for employer use. EMPLOYEE S NAME, SUFFIX, ADDRESS, & ZIP CODE This identifies your full name as shown on your Social Security card and mailing address. 1 WAGES, TIPS, OTHER COMPENSATION This is the total of your taxable wages, tips, and other compensation and taxable fringe benefits. Your total federal taxable wages is the number most taxpayers care about most. This can include: Wages, bonuses, and other cash compensation (including prizes or awards) Back pay, commissions, severance, or dismissal pay and vacation pay Non-cash fringe benefits Executive life insurance
Imputed income Non-qualified moving expenses Taxable employee business expense reimbursements This does not include: 401(k) or 403(b) employee contributions Federal exempt wages Medical contributions Health care and dependent care contributions All other pre-tax contributions 2 FEDERAL INCOME TAX WITHHELD This is the total amount withheld from your paycheck for federal income taxes. This represents the amount of federal taxes you have paid throughout the year. This amount is determined by the elections on your Form W-4 based on exemptions and any additional withholding. If you find that this number is too low or too high, you ll want to make an adjustment on your Form W-4 for next year. 3 SOCIAL SECURITY WAGES This is the total amount of wages subject to the Social Security tax. For 2017, the Social Security tax is assessed on wages up to $127,200. This limited is called the Social Security wage base limit. Wages above the Social Security wage base limit are not subject to the Social Security tax. 4 SOCIAL SECURITY TAX WITHHELD This is the total amount of Social Security taxes withheld from your paycheck. The Social Security tax is 6.2% of your wage income. That means the highest figure that can be shown in Box 4 is $7,886.40 ($127,200 maximum wage base times 6.2%). Your amount should be equal to 6.2% of the wages listed in Box 3, up to the maximum allowed ($7,886.40 in calendar year 2017). 5 MEDICARE WAGES & TIPS This is the total wages, tips, and other compensation that are subject to Medicare taxes. Medicare taxes generally do not include any pre-tax deductions and will include most taxable benefits. That, combined with the fact that unlike Social Security wages, there is no cap for Medicare taxes, means the figure in Box 5 may be larger than the amounts shown in Box 1 or 3. It may be the largest number on your Form W-2.
6 MEDICARE TAX WITHHELD This is the amount of taxes withheld from your paycheck for the Medicare tax. The Medicare tax has a flat rate of 1.45% of your total Medicare wages listed in Box 5. Higher income employees may be subject to withholding for the Additional Medicare Tax at a rate of 0.9%. 7 SOCIAL SECURITY TIPS This is the amount of tip income you reported to your employer. If this box is blank, it means you did not report tips to your employer. This doesn t mean you don t have to report those tips to the IRS. The total of Boxes 3 and 7 should not be more than $127,200. 8 ALLOCATED TIPS If you work for a food or beverage establishment, this box reports any tip income allocated to you by your employer. This amount is not included in Boxes 1, 3, 5, or 7. 9 VERIFICATION CODE Do not enter an amount in Box 9. This box is no longer used. 10 DEPENDENT CARE BENEFITS This is the total amount of any dependent care benefits your employer paid to you or incurred on your behalf. This would include employer-provided day-care costs, or employer-reimbursed day-care costs or benefits from the pre-tax contributions made by the employee under a section 125 dependent care flexible spending account. Amounts less than $5,000 are non-taxable benefits. Any amount more than $5,000 is reported as taxable wages in Boxes 1, 3, and 5. 11 NON-QUALIFIED PLANS This is the amount distributed to you from non-qualified deferred compensation plans or non-governmental section 457(b) plan. The taxable amount is included in Box 1. This is not to be confused with amounts contributed by you. That shows up in Box 12. 12 DEFERRED COMPENSATION & OTHER COMPENSATION There are several types of compensation and benefits that can be reported in Box 12. Box 12 will report a single-letter or double-letter code followed by a dollar amount. Some of these codes have already been reported in other areas of the W-2 as part of other amounts, but are isolated here for tax-reporting purposes. Others have not been reported elsewhere on your W-2. Here are the codes for Box 12: Code A Uncollected Social Security or RRTA tax on tips. Code B Uncollected Medicare tax on tips.
Code C Taxable benefit of group term-life insurance over $50,000. Already included as part of your taxable wages in Boxes 1, 3 (up to the Social Security wage base), and 5. Code D Non-taxable elective salary deferrals to a 401(k) or SIMPLE 401(k) retirement plan. Code E Non-taxable elective salary deferrals to a 403(b) retirement plan. Code F Non-taxable elective salary deferrals to a 408(k)(6) SEP retirement plan. Code G Non-taxable elective salary deferrals and non-elective employer contributions to any governmental or non-governmental section 457(b) retirement plan. Code H Non-taxable elective salary deferrals to a 501(c)(18)(D) tax-exempt plan. This amount is included in Box 1 wages. You will deduct this amount on your Form 1040. Code J Non-taxable sick pay. This amount is not included in taxable wages in Boxes 1, 3, or 5. Code K Excise tax (equal to 20%) on excess golden parachute payments. Code L Non-taxable reimbursements for employee business expenses. Code M Uncollected Social Security or RRTA tax on taxable group term life insurance over $50,000 for former employees. Code N Uncollected Medicare tax on taxable group term life insurance over $50,000 for former employees. Code P Non-taxable reimbursements for employee moving expenses, if the amounts were paid directly to the employee. Code Q Non-taxable combat pay. Some individuals may elect to include combat pay when calculating their Earned Income Credit. Code R Employer contributions to an Archer Medical Savings Account. Code S Non-taxable salary deferral to a 408(p) SIMPLE retirement plan. Code T Employer-paid adoption benefits. This amount is not included in Box 1 wages. Code V Income from the exercise of non-statutory stock options. This amount is already included as taxable income in Boxes 1, 3 (up to the Social Security wage base), and 5. Code W Employer contributions to your Health Savings Account. Employer contributions, including amounts the employee elected to contribute using a section 125 (cafeteria) plan, to your Health Savings Account. Report on Form 8889, Health Savings Accounts. Code Y Salary deferrals under 409A non-qualified deferred compensation plan. Code Z Income received under 409A non-qualified deferred compensation plan. This amount is already included in taxable wages in Box 1, and is subject to additional tax on the employee s Form 1040.
Code AA After-tax contributions to a Roth 401(k) retirement plan. Code BB After-tax contributions to a Roth 403(b) retirement plan. Code DD The cost of non-taxable health insurance provided through your employer. The amount reported with code DD is not taxable. Code EE After-tax contributions to a Roth 457(b) retirement plan offered by government employers. This amount is included in taxable wages in Box 1. Code FF Permitted benefits under a qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangement. 13 CHECKBOXES There are three checkboxes in Box 13. Boxes will be checked if any of these situations apply to you as an employee. Statutory employees are employees whose earnings are subject to FICA (Social Security and Medicare tax), but not federal income tax. Retirement Plan box is checked if either the employee or the employer (or both) contributed. If nothing is contributed in the tax year, then Box 13 remains unchecked. This might be a 401(k) plan, 403(b) plan, SEP-IRA, SIMPLE IRA, or other type of pension plan. This information is used by the IRS to determine if you are eligible to contribute to an IRA. Third-Party Sick Pay may be checked if you received sick pay under your employer s third-party insurance policy while you were not working due to illness (instead of receiving sick pay directly from your employer as part of your regular paycheck). 14 OTHER Your employer may report additional tax information in Box 14 not otherwise covered in the W-2. If any amounts are reported, they will have a brief description of what the amounts are for. This box may contain one or more of the following Travel reimbursement Taxable relocation expenses Union dues withheld Uniform payment deductions Non-excludable moving expenses Auto allowance Educational assistance payments Social club membership
15 STATE CODE & EMPLOYER S STATE ID NUMBER This reports your employer s state and state tax identification number where state withholding was required. If you worked for the same employer in multiple states, there may be multiple lines of information. 16 STATE WAGES, TIPS, ETC. For the specified state, this box reports the total amount of taxable wages earned in that state. These wages may or may not be the same as Box 1 wages being reported. If you work in a state without a reporting requirement, this box along with Boxes 16 and 17 will be blank. If you worked for the same employer in multiple states, there may be multiple lines of information. 17 STATE INCOME TAX This is the total amount of state income taxes that were withheld from your paycheck for the wages reported in Box 16. 18 LOCAL WAGES, TIPS, ETC. This reports the total amount of wages subject to local, city, or other state income taxes. Some localities do not require wages to be reported, so this box may be blank, even though Box 19 has a tax amount reported. If you have wages subject to withholding in more than two states or localities, your employer will furnish an additional Form W-2. 19 LOCAL INCOME TAX This is the total local, city, or other state income taxes withheld from your paycheck. 20 LOCALITY Box 20 provides a brief description of the local, city, or other state tax being paid. The description may identify a particular city or may identify a state tax such as State Disability Insurance (SDI) payments. For additional details and instructions, refer to Instructions for Forms W-2 (2017).