@TomD8 wrote:
If your contributions were made on a pre-tax basis, your employer must amend your W-2 for this year to show the excess deferral amount as taxable wages (in Box 1).
Any earnings included in the amount returned to you should be added to your taxable income on your 2020 tax return.
You NEVER change what was reported on the W-2. The W-2 reports the contribution that happened in 2019 and history cannot be changed. That is NOT how to report this.
As I said, it depends on how the plan admin administrator reports this. If it was a simply return of excess deferrals then it would be reported on a 2020 1099-R with a code P in box 7 that would have to be reported on an amended 2019 tax return as additional 1040 line 1 income just as if it had not been deducted from the W-2 box 1 income.
However, what makes me hesitate to recommend doing that now without the 1099-R so that amending would be avoided, is that the poster said the employer sent a letter informing about the excess. If this was not a case of two employers, each who withheld within their plan limits, but was an single employers that made a over contribution error, then the resulting 1099-R would probably have a code E in box 7 for a "Distributions Under Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS)".
That is reported in a different way and ends up on the 1040 line 4d and not line1.
In this case, unless the plan administrator will tell you exactly how this will be reported on the 2020 1099-R, and what code will be in box 7, then it might be better to just wait for the 1099-R.
**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**
