Contributing to a 401k for previous years

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 11, 2025
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My employer failed to contribute to my 401k for multiple years. I had money taken out of my checks in 2024 (so they would match it) to make up for what should have been taken out all along. I received my W2 with the amounts and corresponding years for those amounts, but there is no way to enter that on my tax form. How can I specify the amounts are for different years?

DavidD66

If I understand your question, your employer did not withhold 401(k) contributions from your pay in previous years. In 2024, your employer did withhold 401(k) contributions. The amount you had withheld in 2024 included the amounts that should have been withheld in previous years, but wasn't. Your W-2 shows your 401(k) withholding by year on your W-2 and your employer made a matching contribution in 2024 for the current year and the previous years when nothing was withheld. If that is correct, you don't need to do anything other than report the total amount of 401(k) withholding reported on your W-2. There is no way, and no reason to identify it by the year it should have been withheld because it wasn't. There won't be any problem as long as your total 401(k) withholding is not more than the contribution limit of $23,000 for 2024. If you're age 50 or older, the additional $7,500 in catch-up contributions, would raise your employee deferral limit to $30,500.

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question123432Author

Hi, sorry. Yes my employer failed to withhold my 401k for previous years. This was corrected this year. And yes the amount was over the limit. They itemized it correctly, say 8k for 2016, 8k for 2024, etc. So do I just enter the total amount that was withheld this year? Basically is there no way to say hey, this wasn’t all for 2024.

ThomasM125

No, you can't apply the amount paid in 2024 to previous years even though it was your intention to make the contributions that way. You will have to report it all in 2024 and pay a penalty for over contributing if that is what happened. You can avoid the penalty however if you remove the excess contribution, including earnings, by April 15 of 2024. Your employer would have to issue you a corrected W-2 form as well if your contributions were deducted from your wages as is typical.

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