It’s the end of January with still no W2 in sight. You keep waiting, watching, and hoping for it to come in the mail, to no avail. You contact the employer; they tell you “it’s in the mail”. You feel helpless and defeated. You have grim thoughts, such as the post office losing your W2 or worse, if you moved to and it went to the old address and someone stole it, social security number and all.
Before you get into a tizzy, consider the following:
- According to the IRS, an employer legally has until the 31st of January to issue your W2. The law does not specify in what manner it must be issued. In most cases, look for it to in the mail.
- You have no recourse with the Internal Revenue Service against the employer for the 2 week period following January 31st to February 14th.
Once the 15th of February 15 approaches and still no W2, take the following action:
1. Contact the IRS at 1-800-829-0922 to file a W2 complaint. The representative may ask you the following:
- Whether you attempted to contact the employer. This is required. If you have not done this, please do so before calling.
- The employer’s name and complete address. Complete address means street number, street name, city, state, and zip code. The information is also required. If you do not have it available, you will need to call back when you do.
After the complaint is filed, a copy will be mailed to you and your employer. The complaint simply states that you contacted the IRS regarding non receipt of your W2 and your employer was identified as the responsible party. Your copy of the complaint also contains a Form 4852, Substitute for Form W2 or 1099. We’ll explain its purpose in just a bit. Within about 30 days (minimum 14 days), you should receive your W2, assuming it was either an honest oversight or it was sent to an address you no longer reside at and was returned to the employer undeliverable. Unfortunately, the reverse can occur and the employer refuses to send a W2 even after complaint. Assuming the employer is still in business and did not relocate, here are a few reasons why that W2 will not be forthcoming:
- Revenge-Takes on different stories depending on the teller. The common denominator is that the relationship between the two parties ended badly, usually beyond repair. The W2 is used as a pawn in an otherwise twisted game of chess.
- Indebtedness-Not very common but can still happen. Employer either rightly or wrongly perceives that at your departure, you owed a debt. Due to this, you will not get a W2.
- You didn’t work for them-Bizarre as it may sound, it can happen. If you employer was bought out during the course of the year, you are treated as though you worked for the former owner for W2 purposes.
In these situations (numbers 1 and 2 above), there is nothing that the IRS can do. They are personal and assuming you have a legitimate legal complaint, may need to be resolved in this fashion. As for number 3, you may either contact the former owner in the hopes that this contact will net you the W2 or file a new complaint against the former owner.
Now, we will cover non receipt of your W2 with respect to special situations:
- Employer closed down (no bankruptcy)
- Employer went bankrupt.
If your employer closed down, i.e. ceased operations, and there is no last known location, such as home offices or branches, HR, or a 3rd party payroll company that you can contact or in the case of a small business, the individual that ran the business, contact the IRS. .
Employer went bankrupt-the responsibility for distribution of the W2 forms would fall to a trustee or receiver appointed by the bankruptcy court. You would need to contact the the bankruptcy court and do the necessary research to locate the case file, the trustee, or the receiver.
