Box 5 - Shows your wages subject to Medicare tax.Box 4 - Shows the amount of Social Security tax withheld from your pay.Box 3 - Shows your employee wages subject to Social Security tax, which could be different from what’s reported on Box 1.Include this amount on the federal income tax withheld line of your return (Form 1040, line 25a). Box 2 - Shows the total federal income tax withheld from your paycheck for the tax year.If you have more than one Form W-2, or you are married and your spouse also has one or more W-2s, the total of all forms’ Box 1 will be shown on Form 1040, line 1. You should include this amount on the wages line of your return. Box 1 - Shows your employee wages, tips, prizes, and other compensation for the year.When viewing your W-2, you could easily get overwhelmed with the number of W-2 boxes – there are more than 14 of them! So, let’s get into the details… Here are the W-2 boxes explained: To help you understand your Form W-2, we’ve outlined each of the W-2 boxes and the corresponding W-2 codes below. Other compensation that is reported on a W-2 includes taxable wage benefits. An employer fills out the forms, and includes information like wages earned, Social Security wages earned, sick leave wages, tips, and recurring taxes taken out of the employee’s paychecks throughout the year. The W-2 boxes and W-2 codes show the taxable wages, you’ve earned and any taxes paid through withholding.Įmployers submit Form W-4 to the Internal Revenue Service to report information such as marital status, number of dependents, and tax exemptions while Form W-2 are distributed at the end of every tax year to report an employees’ income and wages for federal tax purposes. We’ll cover W-2 box codes in depth here to help any questions you may have when you receive your form. While you can easily interpret form fields like your name and Social Security number, there are other box codes that are more involved ways to report your taxable wages. Millions of American taxpayers receive a W-2 form from the Internal Revenue Service, but not everyone knows how to read it - especially when it comes to the many W-2 boxes and W-2 box codes.

W2s from quickbooks payroll service