Tax Year Prior to 2020: California employer state id

[kristengree]

I have a W-2 for a school district. There is an Employer's State ID number but it is not working in the employer ID box

[TeresaM]

The entry in box 15 state employer ID on your W-2 should not cause a problem with your return processing at the IRS or the state revenue office. If there are no entries in 17, you may leave the entire box 15 and 16 blank, as well.  If you do have entries in box 17, please see the work around below.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/5760242

[bkuzniar88]

I'm trying to file my CA State Income Taxes and I have two CA State ID's in Box 15.  It says "CA" twice along with two different State ID numbers in the box to the right of it, along with two different wage lines in Box 16, and one final State Income Tax amount in Box 17.  Ultimately, TurboTax is telling me I cannot have two lines with the same state when filing my state tax return.  How should I go about filling it out?  Combine the wage amounts and choose one of the two State ID numbers?

[VictorW9]

Looks really bizarre. Never seen a W-2 with two different state IDs for the same state. I'm guessing your employer was bought out by another employer during the year, hence a likely reason for that or your employer may have changed their state ID during the year. The correct way should have been your employer issuing you two separate W-2s. If you can't get your employer to change it, then you may want to just use one of the state IDs in your W-2. Normally, state IDs are not really critical compared to the EIN numbers. At least you have just one EIN I presumed. If that's the case then select just one of the state IDs and file.