University employees, including student workers, who want to get their tax returns as soon as possible can file their taxes using electronic W-2s which are now available online.
The Payroll Division of Accounting Services made the tax documents available online again this year in an attempt to make tax filing more convenient. Starting Jan. 15, employees could access their W-2s through their PAWS accounts.
W-2s list wages and amounts of withheld earnings. Employers file the forms for any employee who has had income, Social Security or Medicare taxes withheld, according to the Social Security Administration Web site.
Paper W-2s will be available Feb. 2 and will be distributed by individual departments, according to a Jan. 13 e-mail broadcast from Accounting Services. Employees receive paper W-2s by default.
Donna Dewailly, director of Accounting Services Payroll Division, said there are three advantages to using electronic W-2s, including the obvious one of employees receiving the documents earlier.
“It can save the hassle of lost forms through the delivery process and save the cost of a duplicate paper copy — should the original be lost,” she said. “It is easy to access and they can print at their convenience rather than waiting for the paper copy to be distributed through their department.”
To access online W-2s, employees should log on to their PAWS accounts, expand the Financial Services category and click on Tax Documents. After Tax Documents opens, employees should choose the 2003 W-2 and click on the Go icon to download and open their electronic W-2s.
Computers must have Adobe Acrobat to open and print copies of the electronic documents.
In a Nov. 20, 2003 Reveille story, Dewailly said her department sent 18,474 e-mails to inform employees about the online W-2s. At that time, 22 percent of employees opted for the electronic documents.
“By the time we posted the W-2 forms to PAWS, we had 34 percent who had elected the electronic delivery option,” she said about the department’s latest numbers. 
Payroll Division serves workers at LSU’s main campus as well as LSU-Alexandria, LSU-Eunice, Pennington Biomedical Research Center and AgCenter employees throughout the state.
Emily Brumfield, a marine toxicology student worker and biology freshman, said she chose to receive her W-2s online because she could get them earlier than the paper copies.
“It seems easier than going to pick them up,” she said.
If employees did not opt for electronic W-2s by the Jan. 14 deadline, they still can receive them through PAWS, Dewailly said.
“However, they will still get a paper copy since the W-2’s are already in process,” she said.
W-2s from the previous three years also are available via PAWS accounts.
To receive paper W-2 copies directly from Accounting Services, employees must go to www.fas.lsu.edu/AcctServices/pay/forms.html. The department charges $10 to process duplicate forms.