State Agencies Bulletin No. 1295

Subject
Form W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement) for Calendar Year 2013
Date Issued
December 30, 2013

Purpose

To inform agencies of the content information for the 2013 Form W-2.

Background

According to IRS Publication 15, Circular E for 2013, and the Instructions for Form W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement), employers are required to furnish each employee with a Form W-2 by January 31, 2014.

2013 Form W-2 Content

2013 Form W-2s will include earnings paid in paychecks dated:

Administration: 1/02/13 through 12/31/13
Institution: 1/10/13 through 12/26/13

Employees who worked for more than one agency in the same company during the year [for example, State of New York (NYS) or City University of New York (CUNY)] will receive only one (1) Form W-2.

Employees who worked for more than one agency in multiple companies (for example both NYS and CUNY) will receive a Form W-2 for each company.

Attachment A provides a detailed breakdown of the information that will appear in each box on the Form W-2 Statement.

Additional Employee Information

Employees should retain their last paycheck/direct deposit advice statement for 2013 for a record of amounts paid in 2013 for the following that are excluded from Boxes 1, 3 and 5 and do not appear on Form W-2.

  • Non-Taxable Health Insurance
  • NYS-Ride Transportation Benefit Program
  • CUNY Pre-Tax and After-Tax Transit Benefit
  • CUNY Transit Benefit Transportation Spending Account Program.

Deductions for Dependent Care, Health Care Flexible Spending Account and Non-taxable Health Insurance for CUNY employees are reported in Box 14 as IRC125.

Taxable Gross Calculations

Attachment B (Taxable Gross Calculations). Shows the components of the Federal, Social Security and Medicare Taxable Gross.

W-2 Distribution

The agency address will be used as the return address for the 2013 Form W-2 Statements.

OSC will mail Form W-2 to the employee’s mailing address currently in PayServ. If no mailing address exists, the form will be mailed to the employee’s home address.

Note: IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENT ENCLOSED

will appear on the outside of the Form W-2 Statement.

Questions

Questions regarding this bulletin may be e-mailed to the Tax and Compliance mailbox.