IRS Form W-4, Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate, also known as the IRS Employee Withholding form, is a document completed by employees to let the employer know how much money to withhold from their paychecks for federal taxes. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recommends submitting a new IRS W-4 Form each year and whenever your financial or personal situation undergoes changes.
The latest version of the form was released in 2020. All previous editions are rendered obsolete with the appearance of the new version. A fillable W-4 Form is available for download below.
W-4 Form due date depends on the payroll period. Employers must implement a new form by the start of the first payroll period. For example, if you give your employer an employee's withholding allowance certificate form on August 10 and you are paid on the 15th and the 30th of each month, the employer has to implement the form no later than the September 15 payroll. It can be done earlier, but no law requires it.
There is no time limit for the form, it remains in effect until the employee decides to change it. It must be kept in the employee's payroll folder as verification of the amount of the federal income tax withheld.
Your employer will ask you to fill out IRS W-4 Form at hire, when you get a new job before the first paycheck is given. The correctly completed form will determine how much tax the employer will withhold from the paycheck. The employer must send the money it withholds from the paycheck to the IRS. If you accurately complete your W-4 tax withholding form, you can have less balance due at tax time and prevent the overpayment of taxes, thus saving more money during the year. If you do not withhold enough tax, you might owe a large sum to the IRS.
IRS Form W-2 is a tax form required by the IRS to report an employee's taxes and annual income. Unlike Form W-4, an input document, Form W-2 is an output document, i.e. it is provided to the employee by the employer to give a summary of gross pay for the year. It contains information on how much money was withheld from the employee's gross pay for deductions, for example, local and state taxes.
The employer has to write down its name and address, the first date of employment, and the employer identification number (EIN).
IRS W-4 Related Forms:
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