How do I convert 1040 data to W2 information for missing tax years?

Thanks for your help! So to be clear, the "Wages, salaries, tips" line on my 1040 should match what was in Box 1 of my W-2, right? Will that be enough for the city tax forms or do I need to break it down by employer somehow? I had 2 different jobs for a couple of those years.

Yes, the "Wages, salaries, tips" line on your 1040 should match the total of all your W-2 Box 1 amounts. For city taxes, you typically need to break it down by employer if you worked in different cities. In TurboTax, if you go to the tax return itself (not just the summary), there should be a supporting schedule or worksheet that lists each W-2 separately. Look for something called "Wages and Salaries" or "W-2 Summary" in the detailed PDF view of your return. That will give you the employer-by-employer breakdown you need.

Does this actually work for getting W-2 info from 1040s? I'm skeptical since the 1040 has totals but not the employer-specific breakdowns. Can it really figure out which earnings were from which job?

I'm curious about this too. How long does the process take? I have a similar situation but with 1099s instead of W-2s, and I'm on a tight timeline to file some amended returns.

For the first question, it worked really well in my case. While the 1040 itself only shows totals, most tax return PDFs include supporting schedules and worksheets that break things down by employer. The tool analyzes all these pages to piece together the full picture. It's not magic - it uses whatever information is available in the documents you provide. The process is pretty quick - it took me about 15 minutes to upload my documents and get the results. It should work similarly for 1099s since the principle is the same - extracting information from what you have to reconstruct what you're missing.

Wait, so this isn't some kind of scam? How exactly does it work? The IRS phone system is notoriously impossible to navigate, so I'm having a hard time believing anything could actually help with that.

I tried calling the IRS about 15 times last year and never got through. How much does this service cost? Seems like they'd charge an arm and a leg for something this useful during tax season.

It's definitely not a scam - it's just a service that navigates the IRS phone tree for you and holds your place in line. When they reach an agent, they call you and connect you directly. I was skeptical too until I tried it. I don't want to discuss specific pricing here, but I can say it was worth every penny for the time it saved me. Just getting those wage transcripts solved my problem with missing W-2s from three years ago, and I was able to finally complete those returns.

I tried that route already but got stuck during the ID verification because my phone is on a family plan not in my name. Do you know if there's a workaround for that situation?

Unfortunately, the IRS identity verification is pretty strict. If your phone's not in your name, you might need to use the mail option instead, but that takes 5-10 business days. You could also try using a credit card statement or loan statement in your name as verification instead of the phone. The system gives you several options for verification methods. If none of those work, you might need to use one of the other methods people suggested here or visit a local IRS office in person if there's one near you.

This is the right answer! The full tax return PDFs in TurboTax include all the supporting docs with the employer breakdowns. Just make sure you're looking at the COMPLETE return, not just the 1040 summary.

That sounds perfect! I'll check my TurboTax account tonight. Hopefully they still have the full returns from 5 years ago. Thanks for this tip - would be so much easier than tracking down old employers.