January 31st, the official W-2 delivery day has come and gone, and everyone has received their W-2’s and are getting ready to do their taxes. But You’re Missing Yours!!

What to Do, What to Do?

First – Make doubly sure that you HAVEN’T received it somewhere in your mail and accidentally left it with another pile of mail on the kitchen counter. You’d be surprised how often this happens, especially if one person in the family does the taxes and the other person usually gets the mail. The importance of that little piece of paper often doesn’t register with mail-retriever.

Next – Call the HR department of the job you’re missing the W-2 for and ask if all the W-2’s have been sent out. (I know, by law they are supposed to be sent out by Jan 31st, but sometimes things happen at big companies too. It might be ‘in the mail’ to you and will arrive a couple of days from now.)

If the statement has been mailed out, and it isn’t in the mail, ask to find out what the procedure is for having another W-2 sent to you ASAP. If it HAS already been sent, find out when it’s expected to arrive, and note that day on the calendar. If it doesn’t arrive by the following day, CALL THE COMPANY BACK and arrange for a replacement.

The Wonders of the Electronic Age

If you’re one of the lucky ones (and more of us fall under this category each year) your pay stubs are being automated through ADT or another pay system. If this is the case, it’s almost a certainty that they are online and available for you to download and view or print by now. If you get your pay statements electronically (or have the capability to do so), your W-2’s should already be available from the same web site.

Log into your ADP account (or whatever electronic access you have) and look around for "W-2" entries. Pull the ones for 2007, and you’re good.

They’re Still Not There George!

Ok, last resort, until you get the replacement W-2’s from your work. Take the last pay statement of the year and use those totals for ROUGH CALCULATIONS of your taxes. Don’t use these as the official numbers, as there might be changes due to 401k contributions, supplemental insurance deductions, and other deductions/additions not shown on your pay stubs! This is just to give you some working numbers to put in your tax programs to show the amount due or size of the return.

Once you get the actual W-2’s you can complete the calculations and either pay (by April 14th) or file for the return (ASAP!!).

Do you have comments? We’d love to hear them. Leave us your thoughts and ideas!