dmertz
Level 15

Retirement tax questions

Yes, it appears that the W-2 with no amount in boxes 1 or 11 is reporting the vesting of prior year deferrals or employer matching funds separately from the other W-2 reporting the taxable distribution. The W-2 with nothing in box box 1 will only affect your tax return if you have had Social Security tax withheld by another employer and the total exceeds the Social Security Wage base.  Otherwise, it has nothing that is reportable on your tax return, only information used by the Social Security Administration and Medicare.  You can confirm that it doesn't affect your tax return by entering it and seeing that no amount appears on Schedule 3 line 11 as excess Social Security tax withheld.  Note, however, that TurboTax will not allow e-filing a tax return from a tax file that includes a W-2 with nothing in box 1, so it might make sense to omit this W-2 to be able to e-file if doing so does not affect your tax return.

 

I have no idea how the Social Security Administration treats a W-2 that has amounts in boxes 3 and 5 but nothing in box 1 or how they would be able to correlate it with the reporting on the other W-2.

 

Did the payer actually withhold the amounts in boxes 4 and 6?  If not, how did these amounts get paid?