W2 Opt Out of Printing
e spend a lot money printing and mailing W2s each year. We currently use the opt out option but many staff never go into Employee Access even if they would choose to opt out. We have two suggestions for an RFE: (1)Our preference as an employer would be to require our employees to opt in to having us print their W2. Since employees can print their W2 regardless of their choice we are mailing out W2s to a lot of people who don't even wait around to receive it because they can print it and they know it's there. We're wasting almost $10000 a year on this process. We are aware of the federal/state requirements and would like to make these decisions to meet these requirements as an employer. If that's not possible then (2)We would like to know if we could have the option to roll our opt out list over from year to year and add those each year who opt out. Once an employee opts out they would be out until they contact us to opt in again.
The greatest outcome would be that employees would receive this information in the safest way possible. We receive many forms back from the post office due to wrong addresses and even machine malfunctions (torn and in ziploc; no kidding). We also receive calls that employees never receive the form and so confidential employee information is floating out there somewhere. In this era of identity theft it's an employee's worst nightmare waiting to happen. In addition it would help employees become more comfortable in Employee Access because they would need to go in there for additional purpose. We would also of course save a great deal of money sending by not printing and sending them.
Sue Kean
shared this idea
Great news! The W2 print file process is updated to use the last selected response from the employee’s printing preferences. This is a factor when the employee has not entered a preference for the current year, or when the district is reprinting W2s from a previous year and the employee has since changed their receipt preferences.
You’ll find this update in the target release: 05.19.06.00.04, available on 7/25/2019. Thank you!
-
Prior to launching this enhancement we worked closing with our Federal Compliance group. The IRS states that the option to receive W-2s as printed or electronic must be available but doesn't necessarily specify more details.
With that being said, we recognize there is a need to further enhance this area. As such, we have a project in the works where the W2 and ACA Print Process will be updated to include the option to print those files that were elected to be electronic in the previous year and had no election in the current year. The addition of the "latest" response totals will also be added to the Responses Report.
I hope that helps! Please let me know if there are further comments or questions.
Thank you,
Ashley Prinsen
Product Owner -
Phil Elliott
commented
I question if allowing the system to use a previous year's selection for the current year meets the IRS requirement of asking the employee each year for a selection. There needs to be a way to require the system to print paper for current year selections that are blank even if previous years selection is electronic.
Our issue arises with employees who were full time employees in the past and have retired and/or are no longer full time. They are still active employees because they are now subs, but subs do not have access to Skyward Employee access and therefore cannot print off their W-2. Therefore, we need to print and mail those employees W-2.
If the printing process will not honor current year selections (or recognize blank ones), then the the report for seeing current year selections needs to be filterable by active employees so we can easily identify those who did not make a selection.
-
Gretchen Herron
commented
I'd like to see an option to be able to push out an email to all employees once you set your opt in/out deadlines. That way people would be directed to log into Employee Access and would get the pop up at that point.
-
Lora Holman
commented
I prefer Joni's idea. Let us delay the date available in Employee Access for those who don't select to receive the electronic version.
-
Julie Lipke
commented
Could it be changed that when an employee is printing their W2 that if they double click on year/line the W2 appears directly instead of having to go to the "View W2" button? Currently it goes to the W2 information sheet and people are confusing that information with the actual W2 information. Its logical to assume if you would double click on a line that the form you are looking for would appear. If this cannot be done could there be an overlay that says "This is not your actual W2" and to tell them where to go to get it.
-
Julie Lipke
commented
I agree it would be great to keep those that requested to opt out in one year to always be an opt-out so they didn't have to go back year after year.
Also, there is no incentive for those that choose paper to move to the electronic copy since they can view them just the same as those that choose the electronic option. A set date for those folks to be able to view would be helpful to entice them to move to printing their own. -
Joni Seagreaves
commented
It would also be nice, if we had the option when creating the W2's & 1095's, to select a delayed date for viewing of electronic W2's and 1095's for those who choose paper or don't select anything, which means they get paper,. This date option to delay viewing for individuals that select Paper, would be another incentive to select electronic, as the selection of electronic would allow them to see their W2's & 1095's faster and next year may create more incentive to choose electronic?