Watch for your W-2
W-2 forms will be available in campus boxes on Friday (except for those that normally receive their pay statements at their home addresses). Most of the information on these forms is easy to understand or explained in the tiny fine print on the reverse, but we thought it would be helpful to provide a little extra information:
- Items in Boxes 12a – 12d are required by IRS. The amount (if any) in Box12a labeled “C†is the taxable cost of your group term life insurance paid by the university in 2010. (This amount was also included in your pay as taxable income in 2010.) The amount (if any) in12b labeled “E†is the contribution you made to a supplemental retirement plan beyond the 3 percent that the university matches.
- Box 14 shows the amount of your contribution to the university-sponsored retirement plan and is labeled “TIAA†which is the IRS code/section assigned to our plan. This represents 3 percent of your pay from the time you began participation.
- Employees (and their tax preparers) often ask why the amount in Box 1 is different than the amount listed in Box 3 and 5. Because any contributions you made to the retirement plan(s) are not subject to income taxes, those amounts (shown in 12b and 14) are not included in Box 1. However, those contributions are still subject to Social Security and Medicare (FICA) taxes, so they are included in the amount shown in both Box 3 and 5. If you add the amount in Box 1 to any amounts in Boxes 12b and 14, the total will equal the amount in Box 3 and 5.
- You may find this information boring and/or confusing, but we recommend you save and keep it in a safe place, along with your W-2, so you will have both when you (or your tax preparer) files your tax return.
Finally, big kudos and many thanks to Brooke McGillivray, Melodee Powers and Karen Rathkey for their extra efforts to get these 2,400 W-2s out ahead of the legal deadline of Feb. 1.