Form W-2
Also called: W-2, wage and tax statement
A W-2 is the annual statement a US employer sends reporting your wages and every tax withheld. Its boxes rarely agree with each other and that's usually correct, not an error: Box 1 excludes pre-tax retirement contributions while Box 3 includes them, because those contributions escape income tax but not Social Security tax. Employers file a copy with the IRS, so the numbers are already known before you file.