What is total income earned? is it w-2 wages or medicare wages?

[benji]

I am working on home office deduction and it says to enter total income earned...which box on my W-2 should I use?

[RichardS · Accepted solution]

  The box most likely to be accurate, would be the Medicare Wages amount. Box 1 will show your total earnings minus any money contributed towards pre-tax salary plans etc. So you would need to add these in to get a total figure.

Remember as well; that total income earned, will include all earned income, in addition and including, this W-2.

In essence, there is no single box on the W-2, that will show your total income with guaranteed accuracy. You can use information from a combination of the boxes to arrive at the total, but by far the easiest way to get an accurate total is from you pay stub.

On the last pay stub of 2014, the Gross Income (YTD) amount, will be the total income earned before anything was deducted.

I've also included a link to an article that explains how to calculate your gross income.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/03/16/understanding-your-forms-w-2-wage-tax-statem...