Tax Information Returns: Shared Service Centers Generally Transmitted Federal Wage and Tax Data on Time for Tax Year 2016
Abstract
Congress passed legislation in 2015 that required employers to file Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement (W-2), data with the Social Security Administration (SSA) by January 31 to ensure the datas timely transmission. With about 4.8 million civilian and military employees in 2016, the federal government plays a large role in state governments' abilities to leverage W-2 data. Federal and state government tax authorities can match the income reported by individuals on their tax returns with wage and tax withholding data provided by employers on W-2s to detect tax fraud and protect taxpayers from identity theft. As we reported in April 2017, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) used W-2 data to help identify $863 million in potentially fraudulent refunds as a result of the statutory requirement to hold certain refunds until February 15. To transmit the W-2 data to the states, most federal agencies use one of four payroll shared service centers (SSC) - the Department of Defenses Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS); the Department of the Interior, Interior Business Center (IBC); the General Services Administration's National Payroll Center (NPC); and the Department of Agriculture National Finance Center (NFC). In tax year 2016, SSCs transmitted W-2 data to 41 states that taxed individual income and the District of Columbia. Figure 1 shows the portion of federal civilian employees that each SSC served from the total served by all four SSCs for W-2 data transmissions in tax year 2016.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 20, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1170265
Entities
People
- Jessica Lucas-judy
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office