Purpose
The purpose of this bulletin is to inform agencies of the content information for the 2019 Form W-2.
Affected Employees
All employees who received a Form W-2 Wage and Tax Statement for calendar year 2019 are affected.
Background
According to IRS Publication 5, (Circular E) for 2019, 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, 2020.
2019 Form W-2 Content
2019 Form W-2s will include earnings paid in paychecks dated:
Administration: 01/09/2019 through 12/24/2019
Institution: 01/03/2019 through 12/19/2019.
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 of the Form W-2 Statement.
Additional Employee Information
Employees should retain their last paycheck/direct deposit advice statement for 2019 for a record of amounts paid in 2019 for the following that are excluded from Boxes 1, 3, and 5 and do not appear on Form W-2:
- Nontaxable Health Insurance
- NYS-Ride Transportation Benefit Program
- CUNY Pre-tax and After-tax Transit Benefit
- CUNY Transit Benefit Transportation Spending Account Program
- Tax deductible Union Dues
For CUNY employees only, deductions for Dependent Care, Health Care Flex Spending Account and Nontaxable 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 amounts.
W-2 Distribution
The agency address will be used as the return address for the 2019 Form W-2 Statements.
For employees who did not opt out of receiving a 2019 paper form W-2, OSC will mail Form W-2 to employee’s mailing address currently listed 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 should be directed to the Tax and Compliance mailbox.