My company can't provide me with a state ID for my W-2 taxes

This situation is actually more common than you might think, especially with remote work becoming so prevalent after the pandemic. When a company says they "can't provide a state ID," they usually mean they don't have a state employer identification number for your particular state because they're not registered to do business there. For tax filing purposes, this doesn't mean you can't file your state taxes. You'll still report your income to your resident state, but you'll just need to leave the employer state ID field blank or enter "NONE" when preparing your return. Your W-2 should still show the state wages and withholding amounts in the appropriate boxes even if the state ID box is empty. If your company didn't withhold any state taxes (which could be a separate issue), you might need to make estimated tax payments to your state to avoid penalties. The critical part is that you report all your income to your resident state regardless of where your employer is located.

I was in almost the exact same situation last year and I was pulling my hair out until I found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which helped me figure out how to handle my W-2 without the state ID number. Their system analyzed my W-2 and explained exactly how to file my state return correctly. The tool basically showed me that I needed to report my income to my home state even though my employer didn't have an ID there. It even gave me specific instructions for my state's tax forms (which were different than what TurboTax was telling me to do!). What was really helpful was that it pointed out that I should check if I needed to file a non-resident return in my employer's state too, which I wouldn't have known.

Just wanted to follow up about taxr.ai since I was skeptical in my last comment. I decided to try it for my NY employer/PA resident situation and it was seriously helpful! It immediately identified that PA and NY have no tax reciprocity agreement and showed me exactly how to claim credit for taxes paid to NY on my PA return. It even pointed out a mistake in how my employer was calculating my local tax withholding (they were using NY local tax rates instead of PA ones). I would have completely missed this! The system generated a letter I could send to my payroll department to get it fixed for the next tax year. Definitely worth checking out if you're dealing with missing state IDs or any multi-state tax situations.

If you need to contact the IRS about this issue (which you might if your return gets flagged because of the missing state ID), I highly recommend using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). I spent WEEKS trying to get through to the IRS about a similar W-2 issue and kept getting disconnected or waiting for hours. Claimyr got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes who confirmed that filing without the employer state ID was perfectly fine in my situation. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The IRS agent even gave me specific instructions on how to note the missing information on my return to prevent it from getting flagged for review.

I have to eat my words and apologize to Profile 19 about Claimyr. After my skeptical comment, I decided to try it myself because I was desperate to talk to someone about my missing W-2 state ID (similar to OP's situation). It actually worked! I got connected to an IRS representative in about 18 minutes. The agent confirmed that filing without an employer state ID number is completely legitimate when the employer doesn't have one for your state. She told me to just enter "APPLIED FOR" in that field on the tax software to prevent error messages. The best part was that she also helped me with another unrelated tax question I had been trying to get answered for months. I'm genuinely shocked this service exists and works so well. Sorry for doubting you!

I think everyone is overthinking this. I've filed taxes for years with employers that didn't have state IDs in my home state. You literally just leave that field blank on your state return. It's not a required field in most tax software - it's just there for reference. The important numbers are your wages and the state withholding amounts. If they didn't withhold any taxes for your state, then yeah, you might have a problem and could owe a bunch at tax time, but the missing ID itself is not a big deal.

Has anyone tried just calling the state tax department directly? I had a similar issue and the NJ tax department gave me a generic number to use for out-of-state employers without NJ registration. It was something like "9999999" that basically told their system "yes, this employer exists but doesn't have a state ID.

I work for a state tax department and can confirm that this is a very common situation that we see all the time. The key thing to understand is that your employer's lack of a state ID in your resident state doesn't affect your tax filing obligations at all. Here's what you need to know: 1) You're still required to report all your income to your resident state regardless of where your employer is located, 2) Most tax software will let you leave the employer state ID field blank or you can enter "N/A" or "NONE", 3) Your state return will process normally without this information. The real issue you should be focusing on is whether your employer withheld the correct amount of state taxes for your resident state. If they didn't withhold any state taxes because they're not registered in your state, you might owe a significant amount when you file. I'd recommend checking your paystubs to see what state taxes (if any) were withheld throughout the year. If you need to speak with someone at your state tax department about this, most states have dedicated helplines for wage and withholding questions. They can give you the exact guidance for your specific state's requirements.