W2 wage total is lower than what I actually earned - what should I do?

Thanks for the reply. I don't have all my pay stubs (really wish I'd kept them now), but I did check and I don't have any pre-tax deductions besides standard taxes - no health insurance or retirement through this job. And all the work was definitely in the tax year in question, nothing from December carrying over. Do you think I should call the payroll department first before doing anything with the IRS? I'm worried they might get defensive if I suggest they made a mistake.

Yes, definitely contact the payroll department first. Most discrepancies like this are honest mistakes that can be easily corrected. Explain that you're preparing your taxes and noticed a difference between your records and the W-2. Ask them to review it with you. If you don't have pay stubs, bank deposits are still helpful evidence, especially if the deposits were consistent amounts. Remember that taxes, Social Security, and Medicare would have been withheld from your gross pay, so the bank deposits alone won't match Box 1 on your W-2, but they can help identify a pattern.

That sounds interesting but I'm a little skeptical about uploading my financial docs to some random website. Is it secure? And how exactly does it figure out what's wrong with your W2? My situation sounds kinda similar to the OP's.

Does it work with 1099 issues too? My client reported $3k less than what they actually paid me and they're being shady about fixing it. I've got all my payment receipts but don't know how to prove it to the IRS.

The security is actually really good - they use bank-level encryption and don't store your documents after processing. It basically uses some AI thing to compare your deposits against your tax forms and identify patterns that don't match up. It also extracts all the tax information from your documents so you don't have to manually enter everything. Yes, it absolutely works with 1099 issues too! That's actually a really common problem they handle. It can compare your payment receipts against what was reported on your 1099 and generate documentation showing the discrepancy, which you can use with both the client and the IRS if needed.

Wait how exactly does this work? I thought nobody could get through to the IRS these days. Is this like paying someone to wait on hold for you or something?

Sounds like a scam honestly. No way to "skip the line" with the IRS. And why would you pay someone when you can just call yourself for free? I'd be careful about services claiming to have special access to government agencies.

It's not skipping the line - they use an automated system that calls the IRS and waits on hold for you. When an agent picks up, you get a call back and are connected directly to that agent. It basically eliminates the need for you to sit around listening to hold music for hours. They're actually pretty transparent about how it works in the video I linked. It's basically the same as if you called yourself, except you don't waste your day waiting. And considering I got through in 20 minutes instead of potentially never getting through (which happened to me twice before), it was totally worth it. The IRS agent I spoke with was super helpful once I actually got to talk to a real person.

I think you might have misread my situation - my W2 shows LESS than what I actually got paid according to my bank deposits. Box 1 says $28,450 but I received $35,620 in deposits from this employer. And I didn't have any pre-tax deductions except the standard tax withholding. No 401k, health insurance, or anything else being taken out pre-tax. That's why I'm so confused about where that missing $7,170 went.

Sorry about that, I definitely misread! That's much more concerning - if your W2 shows less than what was actually paid to you, your employer might not be reporting all your income. This could mean they're not paying the correct amount of employer-side taxes. In this case, you should definitely gather all evidence of your actual pay (bank statements, any pay stubs you might have), and contact your employer's payroll department. If they're not responsive or refuse to correct it, you may need to file a Form 4852 (Substitute for W-2) with your actual income amount. The IRS will then contact your employer about the discrepancy.

This is a really good point. I had this exact situation happen last year - about $6k of my income was actually reimbursement for business travel expenses, so it showed up in my bank account but not as taxable wages on my W-2. Was there any chance you got reimbursed for anything job-related? Might explain at least part of the difference.

That's an interesting thought, but I don't think that's it. I was never reimbursed for anything - just regular hourly wages for my work. No travel, no business expenses, no mileage, nothing like that. It was a pretty straightforward hourly job. That's why this whole thing is so confusing to me.

This is really solid advice, especially about not filing with the incorrect W-2 amount. I had a somewhat similar situation a couple years ago where my employer had some kind of payroll system glitch that affected several employees. One thing I'd add - when you contact the payroll department, it might help to ask specifically if they can pull up your year-end payroll summary or final pay stub from their system. Sometimes they can see the discrepancy immediately when they look at their own records versus what got printed on the W-2. In my case, it turned out to be a simple data transfer error between their payroll software and the company that actually prints the W-2s. Also, don't feel bad about pushing for a quick resolution. Tax season deadlines affect you, not them, so it's totally reasonable to ask for this to be prioritized. Most legitimate employers will understand the urgency once you explain you need to file your taxes soon.