Reporting Your Taxable Earned Income

Your W-2 lists taxable earned income for the year that also must be reported to the IRS.

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Taxable earned income

Earned income includes:

  • wages
  • tips
  • salaries
  • stipends
  • bonuses
  • self-employment income
  • employee compensation
  • employer reimbursements.

Consult your W-2. Box 1 of your W2 lists your earned income.

Report your earned income by filing Form 1040, 1040a, or 1040EZ. Or you can e-file.

More than one W-2? Enter your total earned income.

Your W-2 Form

Your W-2 also lists other information: your employer's identification number, employer's address, and the amounts of:

  • federal income tax withheld
  • wages subjected to social security tax
  • social security tax withheld
  • wages subjected to Medicare tax
  • Medicare tax withheld
  • social security tips
  • allocated tips
  • advance EIC payments
  • dependent care benefits
  • and distributions from non qualified retirement plans.

Box 12 are non-cash fringe benefits and may include a code.

Box 13 and Box 14 list 401(k) contributions, military allowances, medical savings account contributions etc.

Box 15 lists special circumstances

Boxes 16 - 21 report state and local wages withheld.

H&R Block Online asks your to record each number, then they do the rest.

Have no received a W-2?

Contact the IRS to notify them. File your taxes by estimating your wages, attach a sheet describing how you estimated and what steps you took to get your W-2

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Related IRS publications

You can get more information about your earned income directly from the IRS, in the form of Publication 525.

Note: you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these publications, which you can get here. (But you probably already have it.)