W-2c - May be wrong/not necessary, State of MN - can it be disregarded?

[SBTX1]

Hello. In January through December of 2022, I had moved back to Texas. The year before (2021) I lived in Minnesota. A mistake was made by my employer and I got MN taxes withdrawn and paid to MN for the entire year of 2022.

I think all I need to do is file a Non Resident Tax Return with Minnesota to get most of it back. The problem is when I went to my employer about this originally and asked what to do, they sent me a W-2c that looks completely wrong.   

Line 16 (State wages, tips, etc) of the W-2c was changed from my actual yearly salary amount to $0.00 - Turbo Tax will not accept this amount for my MN state return, TurboTax tells me that 0.00 is a wrong amount - as I WAS taxed and that money is now in the hands of MN, that actually makes sense that TurboTax would say it's wrong.  If I try to do my State return with my real salary in line 16, as a nonresident of MN, it shows me getting almost all that money back.  Since this W-2c form is presumably filed with the IRS, am I able to disregard the W-2c my employer issued or do I have to file it? I'm worried now this may affect both my State and Federal return filings.  I have called my HR department on this and am waiting for some kind of contact, I was curious if anyone knew on the Turbo Tax end. Thank you for your time.

[LindaS5247]

Did you check the box that says "Corrected W-2" when you entered the form?  Did you delete the original W-2?

Can you merge the 2 W-s's?

Try to do this as follows:

Form W-2c: Corrected Wage and Tax Statement is simply a corrected version of your W-2.  Your W-2c will look a little different than a regular W-2; it has two columns,

• Previously reported and Correct information.
• Enter the dollar amounts from the Correct information column. Don't forget to check the Corrected W-2 box when you get to the Do any of these uncommon situations apply? screen.
• If you already imported or entered your W-2 and you haven't yet filed, go back and edit your W-2 with the corrected info from your W-2c.  
• If you received a W-2c then you check the box that you received it and then correct the entries on the original W-2 rather than also entering the original W-2.

Try and Go back to the original W2 you entered and put in the corrected information from the W2C.  Any information that was unchanged you leave in from your original entries.  Be sure to select the box for "Corrected W2" in the follow up question. 

Will it let you enter a $1 in Box 1 and give you a better tax benefit than filing a Non-Resident Return from MN?  

You should be getting all of your withholding back, if you did not work in MN for any of 2022.

You can enter the W-2c like you would a regular W-2. To enter the W-2 in TurboTax Online:

1. Sign into your online account
2. Click the orange button that says "Take me to my return"
3. Go to Federal Taxes then Wages & Income
4. Scroll down to Wages and Salaries and select Start/Revisit
5. Enter the W-2c
6. When you reach the screen that asks "Do any of these uncommon situations apply, check the box for corrected W-2
7. Be sure to delete the first W-2 if it was entered.
    

If this does not help please feel free to come back to TurboTax Community with additional questions or click here for information on Turbo Tax Support.  You can connect with a Live TurboTax Agent and share your screen.

[SBTX1]

I have performed all the steps you referenced (in the form of correcting my W-2, and only correcting the field that was changed by my employer). 

Again (VERY important), what was corrected on my W-2 was, my salary was corrected by my employer from $40K to $0.00 on my W-2c.  If I enter Box 16 as 0.00, when I am reviewing my State return, Turbo Tax flags it with the following error:  "Form W-2:  Box 16 entered is invalid for Electronic Filing.  It must not be zero for MN electronic filing."

Box 16 was changed to 0.00, so I am entering it at 0.00.  Which seems to indicate to me the W-2c may be wrong.  I am still waiting to hear back from my employer, but is there anything else I can do?  I can try to click 'Continue' when this error comes up, is that wise to do? 

[AnnetteB6]

The W-2C should not affect your Federal return at all since only the state income information has changed.  

Based on the error information you shared, only the MN return will not be electronically filed.  Take a look at your non-resident MN return when you have entered the W-2C and determine if it made a difference in the amount of refund you are getting from MN.  Having the income zeroed out should allow you a refund of all of the withholdings since there is no MN income being reported.  

If that is the case, you can consider filing your Federal return electronically and filing the MN return by mail.  Be sure to attach the W-2C to the return that will be mailed.

@SBTX1 

[SBTX1]

AnnetteB6 - thank you, this post was helpful.  Just having one more issue.

Despite my quoted error message above, Turbo Tax appears to be forcing me still to file my Federal return by mail, citing the error about Box 16 being 0.00, as corrected on my W-2c.   It's forcing me under the same error message to correct for both state and federal, to be clear... because the W-2 information is entered during the federal portion.  Is there any way around this so I can just file federal electronically and state by mail, or under the circumstances will I be forced to file by mail?

[RobertB4444]

If you correct the W2C to show your original salary in box 16 then you can file the federal return.  Once you have done that you can go back to the W2C and change box 16 back to zero and then print and mail the Minnesota return.

Be sure to include the W2C with the Minnesota return when you mail it.  

@SBTX1