WHAT IS BUSINESS SERVICES ONLINE?

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Business Services Online offers Internet services for businesses and employers who exchange information with Social Security. This handbook focuses on wage reporting by employers as well as third-party submitters.

As a registered Business Services Online user who selected wage reporting suite of services during registration, you are able to:

• Create/Resume Forms W-2/W-3 Online,
  
  
• Create/Resume Forms W-2c/W-3c Online,
  
  
• Save Submitted Reports to Your Computer,
  
  
• Submit/Resubmit a Formatted Wage File,
  
  
• Submit a Special Wage Payments File,
  
  
• View Submission Status to check report status, errors, and notice information for previously submitted wage reports,
  
  
• View Wage Report Status to check report status or view errors for reports submitted for your company by a third party, and
  
  
• Acknowledge Notice and/or Request Extension to acknowledge receiving a Resubmission Notice and/or request a one-time 15-day extension of the deadline.
  

Select User Registration Handbook to view a Portable Document Format (PDF) version of the Business Services Online Integrated Registration Services (IRES) User Registration Handbook. Select Wage Reporting Handbook to view a PDF version of the Wage Reporting Handbook.

NEW FOR TAX YEAR 2011

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The following are new for Tax Year 2011:

• The deadline for submitting wage reports using the current version of Electronic Wage Reporting (EWR) applications is November 30th.
  
  
• W-2 Online:
  • Accepts wage reports for Reconciliation (RECON) purpose;
  • Accepts prior year (TY10 only) W-2s in addition to the current year W-2s;
  • Number of Form W-2s per report allowed is increased from 20 to 50;
  • Alerts are added to the post-able fields containing over $10 million. Management Information (MI) on these alerts is also captured.


• Status applications are upgraded according to User-Centered Design (UCD) standard to align with the changes made to the Submission Status query in Tax Year 2010 (TY10);
  
  
• Internet to Intranet (I2I) code is merged into EWR Status common code for ease of code maintenance.
  
  

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

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SECURITY

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128-BIT ENCRYPTION

To determine whether your browser supports 128-bit encryption, select Help/About from your browser menu. Most browsers will display the phrase “128-bit encryption” or "128-bit cipher strength.” If you are unsure whether your browser supports 128-bit encryption, contact the software company that developed the browser.

COOKIES

To work with Business Services Online, your browser must be set to accept cookies. This is the default setting for most browsers. If you receive a request to store a file on your computer, select “Yes”   Business Services Online cookies is deleted when you close your browser.

E-MAIL

E-mail to or from Social Security does not provide security features. Please do not include private information, such as your Social Security Number, in e-mail messages.

PRIVACY ACT AND PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT NOTICE

We ask for the information on Forms W-2, W-3, W-2c and W-3c to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the United States. We need it to figure and collect the right amount of tax. Section 6051 and its regulations require you to furnish wage and tax statements to employees and to the Social Security Administration. Section 6109 requires you to provide your employer identification number. Routine uses of this information include giving it to the Department of Justice for civil and criminal litigation, and to cities, states, and the District of Columbia for use in administering their tax law. If you fail to provide this information in a timely manner, you may be subject to penalties.

You are not required to provide the information requested on a form that is subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act unless the form displays a valid OMB control number. Books or records relating to a form or its instructions must be retained as long as their contents may become material in the administration of any Internal Revenue law. Generally, tax returns and return information are confidential, as required by section 6103.

DATES & TIMES

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Business Services Online normally operates during the following hours, including holidays, and may be available at other times as well:

PASSWORDS

Passwords will expire after 90 days. If your password expires, you will be prompted to change your password when you log in.

DECEMBER 2011

Wage reporting applications will not be available from November 30, 2011 until December 05, 2011. The last day to submit Forms W-2 or W-2c Online using the current version is November 30, 2011.

BEGINNING DECEMBER 05, 2011

Business Services Online will begin accepting Tax Year 2011 submissions on December 05, 2011.

Business Services Online may experience delays in processing submissions due to high submission volume. Please check the Business Services Online Internet Web site for updated information regarding potential delays in processing your submission.

MARCH 31, 2012

The Internal Revenue Service will consider electronic annual wage reports for Tax Year 2011 to be late if they are submitted after March 31, 2012.