When you do your taxes, you’ll need the W2 form to fill in a lot of the information. Filing your W2 form online saves time and effort and helps ensure accuracy. W2 forms are used to report employee wages and salaries to the Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA shares the information with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for income tax purposes.

A W2 is a tax form that documents money paid to you, and money withheld from your paycheck. It includes your commissions, tips, wages, and the taxes that were withheld from your income for federal, state, and social security purposes. This document has all of the information that you will need to fill out the financial information for your personal taxes. If you have worked, the IRS requires that you use your W-2 to file, and then they determine the amount of taxes that you should pay the federal and state governments.

The deadline to file W2 forms with the Social Security Administration (SSA) is January 31 of the following year. Employers are required to provide W2s to their employees by the end of January every year. W2 forms must be given to employees no later than January 31.

You may be given your W2 in person at work, or you might receive it by mail. If you are allowed to access it online, you will get the benefit of being able to file your taxes earlier in addition to not waiting for paper copies, and eliminating the security risks that come along with having that information sitting around on paper.

It is important to retain copies of your tax returns and any supporting documents. When you file your W2 form online, you are creating a permanent electronic record for your use in the future. If a question comes up about your tax return, you will not have to dig through filing cabinets or huge stacks of paper. Instead, you can pull up your information on your computer and get to work right away.

Your W2 shows how much you earned in wages and tips but it also details other important information, such as how much your employer paid for your health insurance, the amount you contributed to your retirement plan during the year, and also the amount you’ve received in dependent care benefits. All of these affect your tax picture.

You need your W2 form in order to file a correct income tax return with the IRS. When preparing your annual return, you will use your W2 form to report your wages and any taxes withheld from that revenue. If you had more than one employer during the year, you will use multiple W2 forms to complete your taxes.