18 October 2019 IRS discontinues the Form W-2 verification code pilot starting with tax year 2019 The IRS announced that starting with the 2019 tax year, it will discontinue the Form W-2 verification code pilot. The IRS states that the earlier due date of January 31 for filing Forms W-2 helps to combat fraud and identity theft and supersedes the need for a verification code. During 2015, the IRS convened a Security Summit with public and private tax administration leaders joining to combat tax-related identity theft. Summit participants included IRS officials, leading tax preparation firms, software developers, payroll and tax financial product processors and state tax administrators. Among its recommendations, the Summit established a verification code pilot program for the 2016 filing season. The pilot involved 2 million employees selected from several third-party payroll service providers whose 2015 Forms W-2 contained a 16-digit alphanumeric code. If the verification code appeared on employees' Form W-2, they were required to provide the code when filing their Forms 1040 electronically. The number of Forms W-2 containing the verification code gradually increased each year until tax year 2018 when the program expanded to 60 million Forms W-2.
Document ID: 2019-1854 | |||||||||
