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Seton Hall University

W-2 Wage and Tax Statement

The following narrative is being provided to Seton Hall employees to help provide a better understanding of the information which is entered in each of the boxes of your 2023 W2 Wage and Tax Statement.

Box 1 – Wages, tips, other compensation

The Federal income taxable wage amount reported in Box 1, "Wages, tips, other compensation," consists of gross wages paid during Calendar Year 2023 plus imputed income, minus salary reductions for pretax health insurance coverage, flexible spending account contributions, and retirement plan contributions.

Gross wages include base salary, overtime and other additional special payments and imputed income. The most common example of imputed income is the value of group term life insurance coverage in excess of $50,000.

Box 2 – Federal Income Tax Withheld
The Federal income tax withheld amount that is reported in Box 2 is the sum of Federal tax withholdings from each paycheck issued in Calendar Year 2023.

Boxes 3 & 4 – Social Security Wages and Tax Withheld

Boxes 5 & 6 – Medicare Wages and Tax Withheld

The Social Security tax is split into two parts: Social Security (FICA) and Medicare.

The wage bases for Social Security and Medicare include gross wages plus imputed income, minus salary reductions for pretax health insurance coverage and flexible spending account contributions. Unlike the Federal taxable wage base, these bases are not reduced by salary reductions for retirement plan contributions.

Social Security wages had an annual maximum taxable wage base of $160,200 in 2023. There is no maximum taxable wage base for Medicare wages.

The Social Security tax reported in Box 4 was withheld at a rate of 6.2% of the Social Security wage base reported in Box 3. Since there was a maximum taxable wage base of $160,200, the maximum tax amount for 2023 was $9,932.40.

The Medicare tax reported in Box 6 includes the 1.45% Medicare Tax withheld on the Medicare wage base reported in Box 5, as well as the .9% Additional Medicare Tax on Medicare wages above $200,000.

Students enrolled and regularly attending classes at the University as full time students, as defined by the IRS, are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Box 7 – Social Security tips and Box 8 – Allocated tips
Not applicable to Seton Hall University at this time.

Box 9 – Blank box.

Box 10 – Dependent Care Benefits
This box consists of the total amount of salary reductions for a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account. This maximum amount for calendar 2023 allowed by Seton Hall University was $5,000. The total in this box reduces the following wage bases: Federal (Box 1), Social Security (Box 3) and Medicare (Box 5).

Box 11 – Nonqualified plans
Not applicable to Seton Hall University at this time.

Box 12C – 12DD (Unlabeled)
These boxes are used to identify specific items. They are labeled with the following letter codes:

BB - Designated Roth contributions under section a 403(b) plan.  Designated Roth contributions do not reduce Federal, Social Security, Medicare, and New Jersey wage bases (Boxes 1, 3, 5, and 16.) 

C – The taxable cost of group-term life insurance coverage in excess of $50,000 (imputed life insurance). This amount is also included in the following wage bases: Federal (Box 1), Social Security (Box 3), Medicare (Box 5) and New Jersey (Box 16).

E – Elective salary reductions for retirement plan contributions to TIAA. Generally, this amount may not exceed $22,500 in calendar year 2023. For employees age 50 or older, an additional “catch-up” contribution of up to $7,500 was allowed in 2023. As stated above, the Federal (Box 1) wage base is reduced by the amount of the employee’s voluntary contributions; however the Social Security, Medicare and New Jersey wage bases (Boxes 3, 5 and 16) are not reduced.

G – Elective employee deferrals to a section 457(b) deferred compensation plan.

DD – The cost of employer-sponsored health coverage. The amount reported with Code DD is not taxable. This requirement does not apply to multi-employer health plans. A multi-employer plan is an employee benefit plan that covers employees at two or more financially unrelated organizations.

Box 13 – Retirement Plan
This section will be marked with an "X" if, during 2023, the employee was an active participant in a retirement plan. If the "Retirement Plan" box is checked, special limits may apply to the amount of traditional IRA contributions the employee may deduct.

Box 14 – Other
For employees having New Jersey unemployment tax withheld in 2023, Box 14 contains the descriptive label WD/UI, which refers to two component parts (Workforce Development/Unemployment Insurance) of the New Jersey unemployment tax. To the right of this label is the amount of New Jersey unemployment tax withheld in 2023. This tax is equal to 0.0425% of the first $41,100 of wages earned in 2023.

Box 14 also includes FLI or Family Leave Insurance withholding, in accordance with a provision of the New Jersey Temporary Disability Benefits Law. This withholding is equal to 0.06% of the first $156,800 of wages earned in 2023.

Where applicable, Box 14 includes taxable tuition remission imputed income that is included in the following wage bases: Federal (Box 1), Social Security (Box 3), Medicare (Box 5) and State (Box 16).

Box 15 – Employer Identification Number
This is Seton Hall University's state taxpayer identification number.

Boxes 16 & 17 – State Wages and Income Tax Withheld
The State wage amount reported in Box 16 for New Jersey consists of gross wages paid during calendar 2023 plus imputed income. Unlike Federal wages, this amount is not reduced by salary reductions for pretax health insurance coverage, flexible spending account contributions, and retirement plan contributions.

The State wage amount reported in Box 16 for Pennsylvania consists of gross wages paid during calendar 2023 minus salary reductions for health insurance coverage and contributions to a flexible spending health benefit expense account. Unlike Federal wages, this amount is not reduced by contributions to a dependent care expense account, and retirement plan contributions to TIAA-CREF and it is not increased by imputed income.

The State Income Tax shown in Box 17 is the sum of state income tax withholdings from each paycheck issued in Calendar Year 2023 (If another state, then "NJ" will be replaced by that State's abbreviation in Box 15).

Box 18 – Local Wages, Tips, etc., Box 19 – Local Income Tax, and

Box 20 – Locality Name
Not applicable to Seton Hall University at this time.

Tax Information available via the Web:
Information about filing individual Federal and State tax returns, along with downloadable tax forms, instructions and publications, can be accessed via the Web at the following sites: