Purpose

To inform agencies of the content information for the 2014 Form W-2.

Background

According to IRS Publication 15, Circular E for 2014, and the Instructions for Form W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement), employers are required to furnish each employee with a Form W-2 by February 2, 2015.

2014 Form W-2 Content

2014 Form W-2s will include earnings paid in paychecks dated:

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 2014 for a record of amounts paid in 2014 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.

For CUNY employees only, deductions for Dependent Care, Health Care Flex Spending Account and Non-taxable Health Insurance are reported in Box 14 as IRC 125.

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 2014 Form W-2 Statements.

OSC will mail Form W-2 to the employees’ 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.