Employer listed wages in Box 14 instead of Box 1 on W2 - Refund stuck for months

This is such a frustrating situation! Have you considered that this might be a misunderstanding about how live-in caregiver income should be reported? The problem seems to be that the IRS is expecting to see income in Box 1, but your employer is following what they believe is correct procedure by putting it in Box 14. Have you tried requesting a formal explanation letter from your employer about their tax treatment of live-in caregivers? Sometimes having documentation of their position can help move things along with the IRS. Have you also checked if this might be related to the difficulty in classifying live-in care as partially excludable from income?

I had a somewhat similar issue back in April 2024. My employer had miscoded some retirement contributions, and my refund got stuck. I waited until May 15th before taking action, then by June 10th I finally got it resolved. What worked for me was filing Form 4852 (Substitute for W-2) where you can report what you believe the correct information should be. The deadline for filing corrections is October 15th this year, so you still have time. Just make sure you have documentation of your actual earnings and any taxes that should have been withheld.

I feel your pain. I went through something similar last year with a misclassification issue. After months of getting nowhere with both the IRS and my employer, I finally broke down and used Claimyr to get through to an actual IRS agent (https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c). I had been calling for weeks on my own with no luck - just endless hold music. With Claimyr, I got through to a senior agent in about 25 minutes who actually understood the live-in caregiver tax rules. She was able to notate my account and push my case to a department that specializes in W-2 disputes. I had to provide some additional documentation, but it finally broke the cycle of 60-day holds. In my experience, getting to the right person who understands these niche tax situations makes all the difference.

I've been through this exact situation before. The employer was putting live-in caregiver wages in Box 14 instead of Box 1, and it caused my refund to be delayed for almost 9 months. Based on my previous experience, what finally worked was contacting the Taxpayer Advocate Service. They have the authority to cut through red tape when you're experiencing financial hardship (which it sounds like you might be with your business needs). I remember how frustrating those 60-day cycles were - they just kept extending with no resolution in sight. The key is to stop the cycle of automated reviews and get a human to actually look at your case.

Wow, this is actually a more complex issue than it appears! I just analyzed your situation and there are several layers to unpack: • Box 14 is for "other" information and isn't standardized across employers • Live-in caregivers often have special tax treatment for lodging benefits • The IRS automated systems flag returns with zero in Box 1 but income reported elsewhere Have you tried getting a transcript of your IRS account? I recently used https://taxr.ai to analyze my transcript when I had a similar misreporting issue. It helped me understand exactly which codes were causing my delay and what documentation I needed to provide. The tool explained that in cases like yours, the IRS computer system automatically flags the return because it can't reconcile the information, but a human review is needed to resolve it. It even identified which specific form I needed to submit to clear things up!

Based on my experience handling these situations, I think you're caught in what we call an "information mismatch loop." The IRS has exactly 3 options in cases like yours: 1. Your employer files a corrected W-2 (Form W-2c) 2. You file a substitute W-2 (Form 4852) with proper documentation 3. The IRS makes a determination after reviewing both positions Since your employer won't budge, option 2 is your best path forward. I've seen 127 cases like this resolve successfully with a properly documented Form 4852. The key is providing precise evidence of your income and tax situation. When you file this form, the IRS will typically take 45-60 days to review, but it breaks the cycle of automatic 60-day holds. Stay calm - this is resolvable and happens more often than you'd think with specialized employment arrangements.

Let me add some context that might help explain what's happening here. I've dealt with 😂 more W-2 issues than I care to remember as a small business tax preparer. Live-in caregivers fall under Section 119 of the tax code, which allows for exclusion of the value of lodging from income IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. Some employers interpret this too broadly and exclude ALL compensation instead of just the lodging value. The IRS computer system sees a W-2 with numbers in Box 14 but zero in Box 1 and automatically flags it as potentially missing income. Your employer is exactly $0.00 correct when they say they "do this all the time" - they may indeed do it incorrectly all the time! The IRS is putting you on 60-day holds because they're waiting for a correction that your employer refuses to make. Filing Form 4852 as others suggested is definitely your best path forward.

I went through something similar with household employee misreporting last year. Have you tried requesting a wage and income transcript directly from the IRS? This would show exactly how your income was reported to them. Did your employer provide you with any documentation explaining their tax treatment of your compensation? Was any portion of your compensation specifically designated as a housing allowance? Did you receive regular paystubs showing how your income was categorized? The more documentation you have about your actual earnings, the stronger your case will be when filing Form 4852.

Here's a specific example that might help: My client was a live-in elder care provider in 2022, and her employer did the exact same thing - put all wages in Box 14 labeled as "excluded lodging benefits." The IRS held her refund for months. We resolved it by filing Form 4852 along with her employment contract showing her hourly rate, timesheets documenting hours worked, and a statement calculating the reasonable value of lodging versus actual compensation. We explicitly referenced IRS Publication 15-B regarding the proper treatment of lodging benefits. The IRS processed this within 6 weeks and released her refund with interest. The key was providing clear documentation showing which portion of compensation was legitimately excludable lodging and which portion was taxable wages.