Year End Tax Resources

The ISC mails paper tax forms on January 25 each year. Mail may take several business days to arrive. If you feel enough time has passed for delivery and you still haven’t seen your tax forms, first verify your designated mailing address in Workday. If your address was incorrect or if your tax forms were lost in the mail, you will need to access your tax documents online in Workday following the steps above.

Tax documents prior to 2017 can be found using Legacy ESS. For details and step-by-step guidance, or to learn how to request paper tax form replacements, see the Obtaining Prior-Year Tax Forms section, above.

Your one University of Washington W-2 reflects your wages and taxes paid for ALL of your positions at the University of Washington, UW Medical Centers and Harborview.

At the University of Washington, a Stipend is an Earning Type used to pay a scholarship or fellowship. There are two Stipend Earning Types used by the University: STP and SWB. Stipends are not considered wages, so are not reported on the W-2. However, that does not mean that the Stipend isn’t taxable. Student Fiscal Services (SFS) assess UW Stipend Earnings. For students, any stipend earnings are reported on Form 1098-T. Non-students will receive a Stipend Letter, mailed in late January.

If your name and/or SSN in Workday does not match up with the information on your Social Security card, you will need to submit a copy of your Social Security Card to the ISC’s Payroll department, either in person at the ISC (UW Tower, Floor O-2) or via secured fax line at 206-543-8137 (important security note: please do not ever include your Social Security Number in an email). Once the information is validated, the ISC will make any necessary corrections.

Box 1 is your reportable taxable income for the calendar year, and is the amount you will enter on the wage line of your tax return per IRS rules; it includes your gross wages minus any pre-tax items such as medical and health premiums, FSA/DCAP contributions and retirement amounts. Box 3 is the amount of your total reportable wages subject to Social Security taxes; retirement plans are not considered pre-tax items for the purposes of Social Security, so Box 3 may be larger than Box 1. Box 5 is the amount of your total reportable wages subject to Medicare taxes; as there is no cap for Medicare taxes the way there is for Social Security taxes, Box 5 may be larger than Box 1 and Box 3.

Box 1 is not usually the same as your gross wages; it is simply the amount of your taxable wages, as determined by the IRS. Box 1 will not include amounts such as your pre-tax benefits, elective deferrals, mandatory retirement contributions or any other amount not subject to taxes.

Box 2 is the amount of Federal Withholding Tax you chose to withhold from your paychecks when you completed your W-4 during the onboarding process. Each employee determines their own amount of withholding. If Box 2 is empty on your W-2, it means either you claimed exempt on your withholding or your calculated withholding elections exceeded your salary, so no amount was withheld from your paychecks. You can update your withholding elections at any time; for guidance, see the Update Federal Withholding Elections User Guide.

Many student employees are exempt from paying Social Security and Medicare taxes and their earnings aren’t subject to tax. Box 3 and Box 5 will be empty or reduced if you qualified under these student FICA exemption rules. You can find more information about student exemptions on the Tax Office’s FICA page, as well as on the ISC’s OASDI (Social Security & Medicare) page.

Box 3 is the amount of your total reportable wages subject to Social Security taxes. Box 5 is the amount of your total reportable wages subject to Medicare taxes. As there is no cap for Medicare taxes the way there is for Social Security taxes, Box 5 may be larger than Box 3.

You may have heard about “verification codes” being used in Box 9 on the employee’s W-2 on the news. Though 16-character long verification codes are being used by some employers to help the IRS verify whether the W-2 information is accurate, W-2 verification codes are currently only a pilot program being used by certain payroll service providers (PSPs). The University of Washington is assessing whether to participate in this program at a future date. A verification code is not necessary for you to complete your tax return.

The IRS requires employers to include the cost of employer-sponsored health coverage on the employee’s W-2. This amount is reported with Code DD. This amount is not taxable.

Box 12 includes the amount of elective deferrals and various other types of compensation. The IRS has not designated an official code for mandatory contributions to retirement plans, and therefore the amount would not be displayed in Box 12. Additionally, because contributions to UWRP are considered mandatory contributions and not elective deferrals, UWRP contributions have been taken into account in Box 1 and are not itemized in Box 12. Your year-to-date totals can be found on your payslip.

The ISC is responsible for sending out three different IRS tax forms. Form W-2s are sent to UW employees who received some form of wage or compensation in the prior calendar year. Form 1042-Ss are sent to UW employees who are foreign nationals who have claimed a tax treaty or code exception to taxation. Form 1099-Rs are sent to UW retirees who receive RET payments directly from the University of Washington (not Washington State Department of Retirement Systems).

1098-Ts are distributed through Student Fiscal Services (SFS). You can download your 1098-T tax form at their website.

The Form W-2 is the tax form sent by the employer to both the IRS and the employee reporting an employee’s earned wages and other salary information, as well as the amount of taxes the employee had withheld from each paycheck in the prior calendar year. Employees use the information found on the Form W-2 when filing their tax return.

Employees use the W-4 to indicate how much federal withholding tax the employer should deduct from each paycheck; the Form W-4 is filled out by employees, usually during the onboarding process. Employees determine their own amount of withholding.

Yes, you can update your withholding elections in Workday at any time. For step-by-step guidance, see the Update Federal Withholding Elections User Guide. Any changes you make will go into effect immediately, though depending on where the University is in the payroll cycle, you may not see the change on your paycheck until the second pay period after you made changes. For more information about withholding calculations, visit the IRS website: IRS Withholding Tables Frequently Asked Questions.

Typically any new deduction changes (eg, increased benefit premium amounts, changes in FSA and/or DCAP contributions, etc) will be reflected in the first paycheck of a new tax year. Additionally, if an employee had met the Social Security max limitation in the prior tax year, and therefore Social Security tax payments had stopped upon meeting that limit, the employee may notice their Social Security deductions starting up again in January. Changes to IRS tax tables may also result in changes to an employee’s federal withholding, which would be seen in the first paycheck of a new tax year.

You will want to verify you entered the correct amounts from your W-2s into the correct fields in TurboTax. People often incorrectly enter the amount from Box 1 on the W-2 into their Social Security Gross and/or Medicare Gross fields in TurboTax or other tax-help software; make sure you entered the amount from Box 3 for Social Security and the amount from Box 5 for Medicare. The Social Security and Medicare amounts on your W-2 are auto-calculated using federally mandated percentages.

Yes. Because the University of Washington has an entirely different Tax ID number, you will have to pay Social Security. Your CPA or other tax advisor may have information about recouping excess Social Security contributions.

Federal tax law changed in 2013 when the Internal Revenue Service and the US Department of Treasury ruled that same-sex couples, who were legally married in jurisdictions that recognized their marriages, were to be treated as married for federal tax purposes. These couples may also be known as Qualified Domestic Partners (QDPs) under Washington State law.

This ruling applies only to couples who are considered legally married and does not apply to Registered Domestic Partnerships.

If you are in a Registered Domestic Partnership, and your partner and/or child(ren) do not qualify as eligible dependents under IRC 152 (PDF), the UW must report the cost of the insurance that UW provides for these dependents and the insurance contributions you make as wages on your IRS Form W-2 (displayed in box 1, 3 and 5). This is called “imputed wages.”

The UW determines IRC 152 eligibility based on the information you provided on your Declaration of Tax Status form (PDF).

This form is completed at the time you enroll in a PEBB health insurance plan, or at any time you change your enrollment due to a qualifying Life Event. Versions of the form are available for both the current and upcoming calendar years:

If you determine that your Declaration of Tax Status was incorrect for the prior tax year or requires updating at this time, contact the ISC.

For more information about Qualified Domestic Partner tax status, refer to the Dependent Verification page.