Reporting FFCRA leave on W-2s: Direction for Payroll

Year-end will look a bit different in Finance this year, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. And that includes reporting FFCRA leave.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) granted employees additional leave under a series of circumstances when COVID-19 took hold.

But now your company will have to pass that information along to the government.

So is your payroll team confident it knows how to account for FFCRA payments on W-2s?

IRS did offer some guidance this summer. But during its August Payroll Industry Call, IRS provided additional clarity on FFCRA reporting.

The Service confirmed it’s possible for an employee to have received payments for all three types of leave, and that’d be reflected in Box 14.

3 types of FFCRA leave payments

The agency said employers can come up with their own abbreviations for the three categories of FFCRA leave. One caveat: Employees must understand what they mean.

Whether you include the info in Box 14 or a separate statement,
here’s IRS’s suggested language for reporting FFCRA leave:

• “sick leave wages subject to the $511 per day limit” (for example, if a healthcare provider had advised an employee to self-quarantine)
• “sick leave wages subject to the $200 per day limit” (for example, if the employee was caring for a child with COVID-19), and
• “emergency family leave wages” (for example, if an employee couldn’t work because of a school closure).