21 Has anyone actually received their W-2 with gift cards included before? My company has been giving us $100 Target cards monthly for meeting attendance goals but nothing shows up different on my paystubs. Now I'm worried they're not tracking it properly.

Just went through this exact situation last year. My company was giving out $50-100 gift cards for overtime shifts and none of us realized they had to be reported as income. Come tax time, my W-2 showed about $1,400 more in Box 1 than I was expecting from my regular paychecks. The key thing to know is that ANY gift card from your employer - whether it's for working extra shifts, meeting goals, or holiday bonuses - gets treated as taxable wages by the IRS. There's no "gift" exception when it comes from your workplace. Your $2,700 will definitely show up on your W-2 and you'll owe taxes on it at your regular income tax rate. My advice: start setting aside money now for the tax bill, or talk to payroll about increasing your withholding on regular paychecks to cover it. Don't wait until April to deal with this - I ended up owing an extra $350 in taxes that I wasn't prepared for.

Just so you know, claiming exempt when you don't qualify is technically fraud. While the IRS might not catch small-time offenders, they can assess penalties and interest if they determine you've improperly claimed exempt status. Better to adjust your withholdings properly using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator on their website than to claim exempt when you don't qualify.

@Nia Thompson - I totally get your confusion! The IRS website can be overwhelming. Here's the simple breakdown: claiming exempt means NO federal income tax gets taken from your paychecks, but you still owe taxes if your total income for the year requires it. Most people shouldn't claim exempt unless they truly expect to owe $0 in federal taxes for the entire year. For your new job, I'd recommend using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator online (it's actually pretty user-friendly) or just claiming 1 allowance if you're single with one job. You can always adjust it later once you get a feel for your paychecks. The key thing to remember: it's better to have a little too much withheld and get a refund than to owe money (plus penalties) when you file. Good luck with the new job!

Thanks everyone for all the detailed info! This is super helpful as someone going through this for the first time. Just to make sure I understand correctly - the IRS won't automatically tell my state about my federal amendment, so I need to file a separate state amendment within 60-90 days (depending on my state's rules) to avoid penalties and interest. And I should keep records of when I filed the federal amendment since that's usually what starts the clock ticking for the state deadline. One follow-up question - if my federal amendment results in a smaller refund (or owing more), will that automatically mean I owe my state more too, or could it potentially go either way depending on how the state calculates things?

Great summary @Admin_Masters! Just wanted to add one more thing that caught me off guard - some states have their own separate amendment deadlines that are shorter than the federal timeline. For instance, I'm in Massachusetts and they require state amendments within 3 years of the original due date OR within 1 year of when you filed the federal amendment, whichever is later. Also, if your federal amendment triggers any changes to estimated tax payments for the current year, don't forget to adjust those too! I made that mistake and ended up with an underpayment penalty because my quarterly estimates were based on my original (incorrect) federal return. The IRS and state both expect your estimates to reflect your actual situation, even if you didn't know about the error when you made the payments. It's definitely more complicated than it seems at first, but taking care of both federal and state amendments quickly will save you headaches down the road!

16 I'm in the exact same situation and my accountant advised something different than what others are saying here. He told me that since I own more than 2% of the S-Corp, health insurance has to be handled as additional compensation on my W-2, then I deduct it as self-employed health insurance on my personal taxes. He said S-Corps can't use QSEHRA for owners with >2% ownership. Is this right??

As someone who's been through this exact scenario, I can confirm what others have mentioned about the >2% shareholder rules. The key thing to remember is that even though the reimbursements have to go through your W-2 as taxable wages, you still get the tax benefit through the self-employed health insurance deduction on Line 16 of Schedule 1. One thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned - make sure you keep detailed records of the actual premium amounts your spouse's employer deducts from their paychecks. The IRS may want to see that the reimbursements from your S-Corp don't exceed the actual premiums paid. Also, the reimbursement timing matters - you generally need to reimburse in the same tax year the premiums were paid. The formal plan documentation is absolutely critical. I learned this when helping a friend who got audited - the IRS disallowed all their health insurance deductions because they couldn't produce the required corporate resolutions and plan documents, even though they had been reporting everything correctly on their tax returns.

Great discussion here! I'm dealing with a similar inherited IRA situation myself. One thing I wanted to add - make sure to check if your inherited IRA has any specific beneficiary designation rules that might affect your options. In my case, I inherited a traditional IRA from my grandmother in 2018, and when I looked into transferring it for better investment options, I discovered that the original beneficiary form had some specific language about investment restrictions that the bank had never mentioned. It turned out those restrictions were actually invalid under current IRS rules, but it took some back-and-forth with the legal department to get it sorted out. Also, for anyone considering the trustee-to-trustee transfer route - definitely shop around for fees. Some institutions charge annual maintenance fees for inherited IRAs that can really eat into smaller balances like yours. I found that some of the major discount brokerages (Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard) don't charge annual fees for inherited IRAs, which makes a big difference over time. The key is making sure whoever you transfer to understands inherited IRA rules and can properly maintain the required distribution schedule. Not all institutions are equally experienced with these accounts.

I'm in a very similar situation with an inherited IRA from my father that's been sitting in a low-yield savings account for years. After reading through all these responses, I'm convinced I need to do a trustee-to-trustee transfer to get better growth. One question I haven't seen addressed - if I transfer my inherited IRA to a brokerage for better investment options, am I still locked into taking the same annual RMD amounts? Or can the required minimum distributions be recalculated based on the new account value and investment performance? Also, has anyone had experience with how long these trustee-to-trustee transfers typically take? I'm worried about missing an RMD deadline if the transfer gets delayed between institutions.