Home |IRS Tax Return | Why is there no record of my employment and why doesn't the IRS have a copy of my W-2 from this employer? Did my former employer commit tax fraud by falsely reporting my wages and the tax withheld?

Why is there no record of my employment and why doesn't the IRS have a copy of my W-2 from this employer? Did my former employer commit tax fraud by falsely reporting my wages and the tax withheld?

Robert James, 20+ years of experience in IRS matters
Answered on September 19,2023

Employers file their copies of W-2 with the Social Security Administration, not directly with IRS. SSA then transmits the information to IRS.

If the employer e-filed the W-2 with the government by the end of January, then one possible reason it's not showing up at IRS is that your SSN wasn't entered correctly.

Another possible reason is that your employer printed out the W-2s and sent it to SSA, but it's sitting in a stack waiting to be scanned into the system. I don't know how long that takes, but it's a slow process.

Very rarely the W-2s are reported correctly but the information doesn't get transmitted from SSA to IRS correctly - you should check your online SSA account to see if the earnings show up in your record:

Social Security Account

As far as the amounts withheld from your paychecks, only some of the taxes withheld from your paychecks are income taxes. Social Security and Medicare taxes are also withheld, but usually don't affect the amount of a refund you may get. You also may have some state taxes. You should see the tax breakdown on any paystubs you have; Social Security is also called OASDI, and sometimes it's called FICA - SS.

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