Phantom W2

[dlhanson]

I just received a W2 from my former Megacorp employer yesterday. The W2 had my 2008 wages as being $331.

The problem with this is that I retired from Megacorp 7-1/2 years ago and never received another penny from them since. This is the first W2 I have received since I left. I do have Megacorp's retirement medical and I still have group Met life term life insurance.

No phone number listed on the W2, just an address in Texas. So I called the benefits hotline number and ended up with the payroll helpdesk. The person I talked to apparently from South Asia (India?) according to their accent. He was very polite but not very knowledgeable. He told me the W2 was for the imputed cost of my insurance. Then he gave me the number for Metlife and transferred me there.

Metlife told me that I since I only had group insurance which I 100% pay for myself that there is no imputed value for the group life insurance. They suspect that Megacorp payroll system somehow thinks that I still have the company provided life insurance (in the amount of my annual salary) that I had when I worked for them. Now, that would be nice to have free life insurance but I doubt if Megacorp is that generous.

I am not retired from working until May and I don't enjoy spending a bunch of time to fix this. I am glad that I don't deal with Megacorp stuff like this anymore. Teaching at a small private university, as I have done for almost 8 years now, is much less painful.

[OAG]

Why not send a short quick letter, to the address on the W2, just what you said, less the last paragraph, requesting a corrected W2 that has 0 in all of the appropriate blocks? If they do not send you a new "corrected" W2 by the time you file your taxes, attach a copy of the letter to your tax return, ignoring the amount on the W2.