Anyone seen "wages over limit" on W2? It was in 2019 (I missed it)

[patrick642]

It affects my Social Security for that year - that "Wages over limit" was a SIGNIFICANT amount. Do I need to get a tax lawyer to make them figure out what happened?

[DawnC]

You may just need to amend your 2019 tax return, but I need more details about what happened.   Did you receive a letter about the 2019 tax return you filed?   

[patrick642]

UPDATE: See the latest comment in this thread (Sun., Mar 6, 2022)

Hey there.

Yep, needed some assistance on this, let me know what your fee would be.

-- No, did not receive any letter. 

What happened was, I received the annual December Social Security Admin letter to check my earnings there.

So, I did. And was hit with a shock. It showed in the social security block I only earned $80K for my 2019 pay.

I went back and pulled out the 2019 W2.

For some reason, I "really" did not pay attention to it - I had a "wages over limit" line with $65,000 in the social security column.

--- My gross that year was $145 K

--- with ~$25 K for 401k

I contacted Plus3 (the company I worked for that year) and asked them to check it out. They came back yesterday and said that they could not find any problems on their side - all data was entered correctly.

-- Plus3 also tells me they contacted ADP to dig into it and ADP found no problem either

Yet, my Plus3 2018 W2 and 2020 W2 for that company (I resigned from them in Apr 2020) - BOTH do NOT 'wage over limits' and the social security block nearly matches up with the gross pay block for those two years as they should (minus 401k that is).

---- Something is wrong somewhere with Plus3 and/or ADP. This is not something I can fix because I did not change anything for 2019 or revert back to in 2020, to make that line appear on the 2019 W2.

Plus3 gave me the number of someone at ADP but I said I was not going to call ADP until I got a tax lawyer, which I may end up doing.  This affects my social security earnings (if we still have it in 10 years or so....).

Was that enough or do you need screen shots? 

Thanks,

  Patrick  ([email address removed])

[patrick642]

Oh, and I already bought the 2020 turbotax deluxe... haven't installed it yet.

[patrick642]

Hello Dawn.

Are you researching and plan to come back to me tomorrow or the next day?

Thank you.

[patrick642]

I need ANOTHER tax expert to chime in to see what I can do with this situation.

I've no further response from the last expert who responded to me a couple of days ago.

[BillM223]

I am struggle to imagine why your 2019 W-2 would show $145k in box 1 and $80k in box 3 - did I understand you correctly?

There can be a number of differences between the box 1 and box 3 amounts. But in the case of your 401(k) plan, that would not appear in box 1 but does appear in box 3, so box 3 is usually larger than box 1 for people with 401(k) plans.

Plus I don't understand why your box 3 amount would be limited to $80k - the wage limit for SS in 2019 was $132,900, which is what you would normally see.

May I ask if you were considered a "highly compensated employee" in 2019? See this IRS webpage - did the HR or ADP people say that phrase at any point?

And as for being "ghosted", our Community is not set up as a chat room -  instead any agent (or any user for that matter) can see your response and answer. An agent is not notified of your response unless you enter @ and the agent ID (take out the space) somewhere in your answer. Yes, I know that this is not obvious.

[patrick642]

@BillM223- thank you for the @ indicator, yes, not obvious - unless one looks at the line below the reply box, even then, that is not well done.

Heh, heh, heh, heh....  Yes - you understand most correctly.

YOU'RE struggling? How do ya think I feel....

I did not get that "wages over limit" in the years prior to 2019 or in 2020. And in 2018 & 2020, I worked for the same company where that blasted line showed up in 2019.

At that company, there are about a dozen who made far more than me and if that had appeared to them, we 'might' already know the answer.

So the answer is no, not a highly compensated person.  HR never stated that as I am sure they would have if it were the case.

Yesterday, I got another email from the company that they happened to be talking to ADP and brought up the SS issue again. The ADP person said:

"there are some reports that could be pulled that may give a little more insight, and that she'd send the original rep a note to pull them. Apparently these reports can take up to 48 hours to pull. "

But it sounds like, my former company screwed up and DID NOT do proper due diligence in explaining it to ADP in the first place.  I thought this would be an easy fix, something got corrupted either at my former company, at ADP or en route to ADP (electronically).  And comparing my 2018 and 2020 data to the screwed up 2019 W2 would have been an easy task to troubleshoot...

-- Awaiting this to see what happens now at that company.

Thanks for that IRS link, that may actually be it. I will attempt to contact SSA again (a VERY painful process during CoViD - being on hold for 20 minutes several times before giving up) - and bring that up to see what they say about it.

On the ghosting part, I tried not to be harsh but when I've done technical work with folks from around the country and other parts of the globe - if I reach out to someone (especially folks from a different culture), I follow up - just in case a communique may have been sent but not in the, ahhh, proper manner.

Thanks for reaching out Bill.

[patrick642]

@BillM223 & @DawnC ---  well, the error seems to have been corrected.

End result - had to reach out to my old company again and get on them for about 3 months.

Each time, they say it is ADP dragging their feet in responding.  

• My old company FINALLY got me a number I could call at ADP to see about straightening it out but the person I talked to still stated "they do not talk to employees" only "employers".
• Went back to old company, let them know. 
  • They, again, FINALLY got me another number to call - this time, I got to talk to a support rep.
• The only problem this time, the systems these Support members had access to did not contain my old company (that has been in existence for over 10 years, working through ADP) in their database. 
  • They finally managed to find the old company once I gave them my SSN  BUT it was only partial info.  After talking to their team and supervisor, it turns out, they did NOT have access to all the info they needed to make any changes...

So, went back to old company again - let them know. They told me they were in contact with a better, more responsive ADP rep to help fix this.

They DID FINALLY fix the blasted problem which stemmed from a mistake as it turns out (WHICH I TOLD THEM TO BEGIN WITH).

They and ADP are preparing another W2 for me without the "wages over limit" nonsense. But it would take 4 - 6 weeks...

I still wanted to know what happened to trigger that mistake, and my old company told me, they will come back to me once they get that info from ADP....

• That was March 26 and I'm getting gray hair while waiting, AGAIN....!!! (Could be CoViD related delays, but I do not know....)

Best part is, either the:

• old company FINALLY figured out their mistake OR
• ADP (unlikely) figured out the mistake on their end. 
  • And I can now get the Social Security Admin to correct my data for that year, that is - ONCE I receive the corrected W2 (for which the old company SHOULD be getting that data to the SSA).

Sorry for the rant (not shouting above, just emphasizing) but I severely dislike the run-around in these kinds of scenarios in which I should not have been the one to keep pushing them to unwillingly fix their mistake. 

I also wanted to lay out in a some what detailed manner what happened, in case someone else runs into this kind of error. 

• Historical content reference...

Thank you again for attempting to help me out. 

Patrick

[patrick642]

UPDATE:

--- I also want to say 'thanks' to @BillM223 & @DawnC - for aiding in getting me pointed in right direction. ---

Another individual currently has the same problem and reached out to me this week on obtaining an unlisted/private number for ADP.

I responded back to this person yesterday but have not heard back about my response to him/her.

So, I thought it best if I post my detailed response here in case someone else has the same problem before  attempting to reach out to me.

------------------------ My response -----------------------

• My primary advice is try to call that payroll company who does the checks for the current or former company - and tell someone in their management chain that your current or former company is not willing to work with you on it.
• If that does not work, let them both know you are getting a lawyer to file paperwork to ensure they "DO" work with you in getting it fixed.

The problem is between the current or former company and the payroll company to get it fixed. It is not on you, since you cannot do anything, well, except to bring in a legal representative and sue them for this situation... This affects your social security...

This at least fixed the W2 aspect once you do get it corrected.

My brief history:

First, it took 7 months (Dec 2020 - Jul 2021) to get a corrected W2 in my hands. 

It was primarily due to waiting on ADP to do "SOMETHING"!  ADP was the payroll company that handled pay for my former company.

Next, my former company (use Zed for this discussion) got me one number, which I called - but ADP said they do not talk to employees, only the employer. 

So that step REALLY pissed me off.  Went back to Zed to say, that number was useless.

Zed got me another number, I talked to an ADP rep. But...!!!! It turned out that rep's section could not see everything and was completely unable to assist.

Went back to Zed on that as well.

Overall, Zed, for the whole process, kept telling me that ADP was dragging their feet to get it resolved. Individuals at ADP were not responding in a timely manner.

Zed had to deal with multiple ADP staff because of ADP changes in processes and personnel. (In all fairness, Covid may have been part of the problem at ADP.)

Zed finally got hold of one competent ADP staffer to assist (as they tell me) who worked it out, sometime in May 2021.

This primarily affected my social security (W2 box 3).

Then, I called the SSA as to what the process is once I receive a corrected W2 - they said I would have to come in with the document - this was during the less restrictive lock down in early 2021.

It took another two months before a corrected W2 was generated and my receiving it... Called the SSA, again, in advance to ensure which office I had to go to.

It turned out, I did not have to go in. The SSA rep told me the corrected data was already in the system. So, that part was completed by ADP when they generated a corrected form. When I checked my social security numbers (you can look up your own as well), it was all good.

Now, I will find someone to fix/amend my 2019 tax form for a better tax refund for that year. 

End result - I hope this helps others with this kind of issue.  I know I did a lot of research as well

[patrick642]

UPDATE:

--- I also want to say 'thanks' to @BillM223 & @DawnC - for aiding in getting me pointed in right direction. ---

Another individual currently has the same problem and reached out to me this week on obtaining an unlisted/private number for ADP.

I responded back to this person yesterday but have not heard back about my response to him/her.

So, I thought it best if I post my detailed response here in case someone else has the same problem before  attempting to reach out to me.

------------------------ My response -----------------------

• My primary advice is try to call that payroll company who does the checks for the current or former company - and tell someone in their management chain that your current or former company is not willing to work with you on it.
• If that does not work, let them both know you are getting a lawyer to file paperwork to ensure they "DO" work with you in getting it fixed.

The problem is between the current or former company and the payroll company to get it fixed. It is not on you, since you cannot do anything, well, except to bring in a legal representative and sue them for this situation... This affects your social security...

This at least fixed the W2 aspect once you do get it corrected.

My brief history:

First, it took 7 months (Dec 2020 - Jul 2021) to get a corrected W2 in my hands. 

It was primarily due to waiting on ADP to do "SOMETHING"!  ADP was the payroll company that handled pay for my former company.

Next, my former company (use Zed for this discussion) got me one number, which I called - but ADP said they do not talk to employees, only the employer. 

So that step REALLY pissed me off.  Went back to Zed to say, that number was useless.

Zed got me another number, I talked to an ADP rep. But...!!!! It turned out that rep's section could not see everything and was completely unable to assist.

Went back to Zed on that as well.

Overall, Zed, for the whole process, kept telling me that ADP was dragging their feet to get it resolved. Individuals at ADP were not responding in a timely manner.

Zed had to deal with multiple ADP staff because of ADP changes in processes and personnel. (In all fairness, Covid may have been part of the problem at ADP.)

Zed finally got hold of one competent ADP staffer to assist (as they tell me) who worked it out, sometime in May 2021.

This primarily affected my social security (W2 box 3).

Then, I called the SSA as to what the process is once I receive a corrected W2 - they said I would have to come in with the document - this was during the less restrictive lock down in early 2021.

It took another two months before a corrected W2 was generated and my receiving it... Called the SSA, again, in advance to ensure which office I had to go to.

It turned out, I did not have to go in. The SSA rep told me the corrected data was already in the system. So, that part was completed by ADP when they generated a corrected form. When I checked my social security numbers (you can look up your own as well), it was all good.

Now, I will find someone to fix/amend my 2019 tax form for a better tax refund for that year. 

End result - I hope this helps others with this kind of issue.  I know I did a lot of research as well