Question

Bill took two W-2’s to his tax preparer to prepare his taxes for the previous year. Both of them were from the same employer. His employer’s accounting period (tax year is July 1 – June 30). All of the following are possible reasons for Bill to have two Forms W-2 except: a) One of the W-2’s is for the wrong year. b) One of the W-2’s was corrected. c) They are duplicate copies. d) Since Bill’s tax year is the calendar year, the employer issued a separate W2 to Bill for each half of the employer’s tax year.

Answer 1

Ans is a) One of the W-2’s is for the wrong year

Explanation: W-2 is a statement of an employee earnings during the previous year with detail of allowances, deduction etc., its usually issued one time if employed by same employer for whole of the year, but there are some exceptions where its issued more than one:

When tax period of employer is different from employee, than sometimes employer issues W2 for both part of tax year, and if there is some correction filed by employee then also its issued as original and corrected, usually 6 copies of W2 is prepared by employer, and 3 of them is given to employee, one for federal tax department, second for state or local tax department, and third as employee copy.

Its usually issued by 31^st January after the end of previous year, so there is a no chance that w2 is issued for wrong year, that’s why, it can not be a reason for issuance of two w2, others can be a possible reason.