What if No box 14 on medical leave tax form?

[tlege]

14a has wages 14b he’s total benefits paid but no
14 description box

[RBBrittain · Accepted solution]

Can you explain which form you're talking about? Your description doesn't seem to fit a W-2, whose Box 14 is simply called "Other" (no a or b) and is often a catch-all for unusual figures that may OR may not be relevant to your tax return -- health insurance premiums, railroad retirement tax amounts, pre-tax contributions to state & local pension plans, employee contributions to state & local unemployment or disability programs, etc.

If it's from a W-2, it sounds more like Boxes 12a, b, c, d which if completed consist of BOTH one or more letters (meanings are listed in the W-2 employee instructions) AND a number described by those letters. The most common Box 12 letters are D (401(k) contributions) and DD (non-taxable value of employer health insurance), but there are many others such as J (non-taxable sick pay) which sounds closest to the situation you describe. (A few W-2s have ONLY a dollar amount after letter J in Box 12, with NO other dollar amounts anywhere on the W-2; generally those should NOT be entered in TurboTax or you won't be allowed to e-file.)

[BillM223]

What form are you referring to? Remember that we in the Community cannot see your private tax data, so help us help you.

[tlege]

On my w-2 from the medical leave insurance co. it has no line 14.  What is 14 for. There is 14A and 14B with dollar amounts but no line 14 to fill in on tax forms 

[RBBrittain]

What are the descriptions of the amounts in 14A & 14B? Are they perhaps actually 12a & 12b? Do they have letters in front of them? Or are they "other" amounts that may (or may not) need to be entered in the Box 14 lines of your TurboTax W-2?

Since you've confirmed it's a W-2 from an insurance company, tell me this: Do you have amounts in Boxes 1, 3 and/or 5 of this W-2? Do you have an amount in Box 12 (a, b, c, d) preceded by the letter J?

[tlege]

1 2 3 4 5 6 have numerical values 

Box marked 14 has “Tier 1 Employee Tax:

                                      Tier 1 Employee Medicare Tax:

Both in that Box

12A has (J) and dollar value

13 marked third-party sick pay

14A dollar value 

14A dollar value 

Thanks for your help.

[RBBrittain]

Sorry for being so late getting back to you. "Tier 1" suggests you're in railroad retirement. The Railroad Retirement Board requires all railroad retirement taxes (including Medicare tax) to be entered in Box 14, as Tier 1 railroad retirement is intended to be a substitute for Social Security yet is *not* administered by the Social Security Administration like ordinary SS & Medicare taxes.

I'm not sure why your W-2 has entries BOTH there AND in Boxes 3-6; those are used only for SSA-collected SS & Medicare taxes, which employees covered by RRB generally do NOT pay. (Perhaps your insurance company reported to both SSA & RRB.) Regular RRB Tier 1 tax replaces SS, while RRB also collects your Medicare tax as part of Tier 1. Once you retire, the terminology is slightly different because RRB Tier 1 actually pays out slightly more than SS; the Tier 1 "SS-equivalent benefit" or "SSEB" is subject to only limited taxation like SS, while the "non-SSEB" or "NSSEB" part (the remaining Tier 1 plus all of Tier 2) is fully taxable after a basis exclusion for part of your past Tier 2 taxes much like an ordinary pension. (RRB sends railroad retirees two forms on one sheet -- Form RRB-1099 for the SSEB which is similar to Form SSA-1099, plus Form RRB-1099R for the NSSEB which is a variant of the IRS 1099-R. Each is entered in TurboTax the same places as the corresponding SSA & IRS forms, but because RRB's forms are structured differently you flag them there as an RRB-1099 & RRB-1099R respectively.) States vary on how railroad retirement is taxed at state level; many states, including my own Arkansas, still exempt your ENTIRE railroad retirement check from state tax.

Find the dropdown in TurboTax's W-2 Box 14 and choose the option that corresponds with each dollar amount on your paper W-2 Box 14 (the letter after "14" is irrelevant). Since your W-2 has entries in Boxes 1 & 2, it MUST be entered into TurboTax even though you have a code "J" entry in Box 12a. (Omitting code "J" W-2s is ONLY appropriate if that's the ONLY dollar amount on that particular W-2, because W-2s with nothing in Box 1 will prevent you from e-filing and code "J" entries by themselves are not taxable.)