What does Form TC-40w: payer ID must be 14 characters long without hyphens, you must go back to federal w-2 or 1099 to update the Employer/payer state withholding id mean

[dusktiljawn]

Just for clarification, you'll have to "clear and start over" to manually import your employer info. If you are auto populating this info, there will be no way of editing it.

[deafystephie]

Just here to say I have triple-checked as well and I am running into the same issue. Let me know if you have found a solution!
Update: I had to add a 0 to one of my IDs (I work three jobs) in the front because it looked like 14 letters but it was actually 13. WHOOPS

[PinkJMomster]

Just had this issue, tried everything.

Lowercase, cleared cookies and cache, Deleted W2 and put in manually. 

ALL Payroll withholding IDs must be Lowercase. 

At least that is what worked for us. 

God speed. 

[horselovr1]

My caller had this same issue. I advised the customer to go back to the W-2/1099 he imported, and delete the Employer State ID number. Then, re-type it manually, making sure the number has 14 digits like this example:

example:    [phone number removed]wth

Utah will not accept it any other way.

Somehow when he imported the number, there was an extra character we could not see. Once he deleted the number and manually entered it, he was able to finish efiling the return.

I hope this helps anyone getting this error.

[srgfry]

Thank you so much for this info! Using the 0's before (since I had a less amount of numbers) and the "wth" at the end worked for me! (I am also filing in Utah).

You saved me so much time and frustration. THANKS!

[dcc84]

Another success story here for 2022 year with the problem e-filing due to withholding number format. Manually changing the "WTH" on 1099s to lower case "wth" allowed me to e-file. Thanks to prior contributors! Looks like it's still an issue in Utah.

[karliedb]

Changing the last letters to lowercase worked. Thank you. I was ripping my hair out

[BSarkady]

I have confirmed that I have 14 characters.  I have changed WTH to wth.  I have deleted and re-entered the entire number.  I have deleted the form and re-entered everything.  I cannot get this to work without error.

Turbotax Premiere

Desktop version

Windows 11

To top it off I even called support opted for the call back.  As soon as the call came I answered it.  The computer said this is the call back then it went to "Sorry we missed you." and something like we won't be calling back.   For me I think it is time to try a different vendor.  

[TeresaM]

First, if there are no entries in 17, you may leave the entire box 15 and 16 blank, as well.

Your state department of revenue will be able to easily identify your employer from their 9-digit federal EIN, so the state ID number is a little redundant anyway, but is still a way that your state tracks employers in their internal state computer system. 

In Utah, there should be 11 numerals followed by wth with no dash. Last year it required the wth in capitals but this year I have been seeing taxpayers succeed with it as lower case, so they much have changed.  If your first 11 characters are all numerals and no zeros or letter "l"s, then try it with 11 digits of 9 and then wth or  99999999999wth  and see if that will go through. 

 

[BSarkady]

I have the 14 digits, the numbers do contain 0's.  I tried entering 99999999999**bleep**, still not working.

[TeresaM]

I just went in and did a Form W-2 with 99999999999wth  as the state ID and then opened a Utah return and ran review. It did not flag it during state review. So I think the data in the state return needs to be refreshed. 

Please delete the current Utah state return and add again, so it can pull fresh data from the federal return. 

If this is TurboTax Online

1. Go to the States section and click on the trashcan icon
2. Confirm Delete
3. Select Add another state button
   
   

[BSarkady]

I should have been more clear.  In my return I have two W-2's and a 1099-R.  The W-2's are fine it is the 1099-R that is causing the problem.  Where you are an employee I would be happy to do a Webex, or Teams or other application that will allow me to show you what is happening.

[AmyC]

You may want to delete the state entry on the 1099-R if it has no effect on your return, as in one state on your return. Since the all 9 trick isn't working, you may need to do a screen share, you can contact support.

[kcovieo]

I've had this problem for years and finally found this suggestion and it worked! I live in Utah and had to change the WTH to wth in order to efile. Thank you!

[DeeboCrenshaw]

• So I just ran across this as well and fixed it…

All you need to do is go back to your federal W-2s and double check box 15. Make sure to get rid of UT at the beginning of the number. And also make sure the number ends with wth.

Hopefully that works for the rest of you.