Tag Archives: Form 5498-SA

HSA Employer Contributions on W2 Box 12 “W”

Come tax time when you need to file Form 8889, you may be wondering how to find your contributions to your HSA. We know that you should be receiving Form 5498-SA from your HSA custodian that outlines the total contributions that went into your HSA during the year. However, this form is a lump sum total: it does not break out employer (no tax impact) vs. employee (tax deductible contributions); it just shows how much went into the account that year. Also remember that form 5498-SA may be missing prior year contributions made in the current year.

So how can you figure out your employer contributions that were made? How can you use this information to complete Line 3 and Line 9 of Form 8889?

A word about Cafeteria Plans

For one, let’s clarify that cafeteria plan contributions are counted as employer contributions. Cafeteria plans are when your employer withholds your contributions which they send to the HSA custodian for you. So these are employee contributions but your employer is doing the work for you. The benefit of cafeteria plans is that they are already pre-tax; not just income tax, but medicare / social security / other tax. So you save the taxes up front and get them deposited automatically into

You will see that for both the W2 and Form 8889, cafeteria plan contributions function just like employer contributions, not employee contributions.

Employer vs. Employee Contributions on W2

When you receive your W2 at year end, you will have a Box 12 marked with “W” and your employer contributions for the year. As mentioned, this amount will contain:

  • Amounts your employer contributed to your HSA
  • Amounts you contributed to your HSA through your employer via a cafeteria plan

Here is what Form W2 looks like for 2018 with HSA contriibutions:

HSA-employer-contributions-W2-example

So this box indicates any employer contributions for the fiscal year. Note that this box will not contain any prior year contributions – these will need to be added to the amount. If your employer pays a bonus or end of year contribution into your HSA that occurs in the following year, be sure to add that in.

Around the same time you will receive Form 5498-SA from your custodian. It will detail the total contributions made to your HSA. Again, be sure to add any prior year contributions before filing Form 8889. Using this and your W2, you can calculate the employee contributions to your HSA.

Employee Contributions equal contributions on Form 5498-SA minus those on your W2 Box 12 “W”

What this is saying is, “Total HSA contributions – Employer Contributions = Employee Contributions.” Using these two documents, you can back out and determine your contribution amount.

Alternatively, you may be able to access your HSA custodian’s website to see a breakdown of employee vs employer contributions. But it is always best to confirm with the official documentation in case you need to correct anything.

Impact on Form 8889

Now that we know the difference between employee and employer contributions, you need to handle them correctly on IRS tax form 8889 for Health Savings Accounts. You will report your (post-tax) employee contributions on Line 2, and employer (including cafeteria plan) contributions on Line 9.

Note: if you need help accounting for your HSA contributions, please consider my service EasyForm8889.com to complete Form 8889. It asks simple questions in a straightforward way and will generate your HSA tax form in 10 minutes. It is fast and painless, no matter how complicated your HSA situation.


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How Much Did I Contribute to My HSA?

This question was submitted by a user of EasyForm8889.com. Feel free to send in your question today to evan@hsaedge.com.

I don’t know where to find the amount I contributed to my HSA. The IRS says I had $774 in my HSA account. My W2 says my employer contributed $850. Does this make sense?

The bad way to determine your HSA contribution

First off, using your bank account, HSA transaction history, or W2 isn’t the way to determine your HSA contributions for a given year. Why is this? While these numbers may often equal the amount you contributed to your HSA, they may not equal what was reported to the IRS as contributed to the HSA. Mistakes happen, and sometimes your HSA administrator will miss a contribution or mess up the dollar amount. If this happens, they will report a different amount than you report on your taxes. This discrepancy can be a red flag to the IRS, which is why it is critical to have a “source of truth” for your HSA contributions. This serves as the official amount contributed to your HSA for the year, and if it is not correct, you can have your custodian fix it fairly easily.

Form 5498-SA reports contributions for the year

Each year, your HSA custodian (bank where you have account) is required to send you IRS Form 5498-SA. This form provides an accounting of all contributions to your HSA for the tax year, including personal, employer, prior year, and rollover contributions. Form 5498-SA is the “source of truth” we describe above, and is the final say in what was contributed. It is basically the “writing in stone” between you, your HSA custodian, and the IRS. Thus, if it is not correct, contact your custodian and make it so.

Here is an example of what Form 5498-SA looks like:

HSA_Form_5498-SA_2016 completed

For more detailed information on Form 5498-SA, please see this article.

Where is my Form 5498-SA?

Your HSA custodian is required to send you this form each year before you file your taxes. Generally, you should get the form by January 31st. However, mail gets lost or sent to wrong addresses. If you do not have your Form 5498-SA, don’t worry, you should be able to find this form on your custodian’s website in the document archive. Worst case, give them a call and ask to resend it or email it to you.

Why HSA Contribution amounts are important

Getting your HSA contribution amount is critical when you go to file Form 8889 each year, as an incorrect value can cost you money. If you under report your contribution to your HSA, you will not receive the tax deducation that Form 8889 allows you (by means of Form 1040). You basically did all the hard work for the HSA and didn’t get any benefit. On the other hand, if you over report your contribution, you risk taking too much of a deduction. This results in filing your taxes wrong and spending time dealing with fixing them or wost case, a friendly chat with the IRS.

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Note: if you need help calculating your contribution on your HSA taxes this year, please consider using my service EasyForm8889.com to complete Form 8889. It is fast and painless, no matter how complicated your HSA situation.


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What is HSA tax form 5498-SA?

Form 5498-SA is an informational tax form related to Health Savings Accounts. It is provided by your HSA Trustee (or Custodian) and the IRS requires it be sent to you each year that you make contributions to your HSA. It provides the “official” accounting of your HSA for the year and documents:

  • The HSA trustee
  • The HSA account holder and account number
  • Total contributions made
  • Prior year contributions made
  • HSA rollover contributions made
  • HSA account balance

In essence, it is serves as a year end statement for your HSA (or unrelated to this blog, your MSA or Medicare Advantage) and is used to file HSA tax Form 8889 as well as your personal income taxes.

What should I do with Form 5498-SA?

Form 5498-SA is critically important to filing your taxes. It serves as the source of truth for what was contributed to your HSA for the tax year as well as defining Prior Year Contributions and HSA Rollover contributions. Without referencing Form 5498-SA when you prepare your taxes, you run the risk of incorrectly reporting your HSA contributions for the year. This could lead to missed tax savings or even additional taxes and penalties being assessed later.

You need to reference Form 5498-SA when you complete Form 8889, which is the tax form required for Health Savings Accounts (see article: How to File Form 8889). Box 2 is key as it describes all contributions made to your HSA during the year. You will use this number on Line 2 of Form 8889 to indicate your HSA contributions for the year. However, you will first need to remove any employer contributions to your HSA. If your employer made contributions to your HSA, this can be found on your W-2, and should be subtracted from Box 2 of Form 5498-SA to determine your personal contribution amount. Employer contributions go on Line 9 of Form 8889.

Note that if you made a qualified funding distribution (IRA to HSA transfer), this amount is reflected in Box 2 of Form 5498-SA. That amount will also need to go in Line 10 of Form 8889.

What does Form 5498-SA look like

Form 5498-SA is a fairly simple form but may change from year to year depending on IRS rules and regulations. Here is a blank example for 2016:

HSA_Form_5498-SA_2016

And here is what an example completed Form-5498-SA might look like, which is what you receive:

HSA_Form_5498-SA_2016 completed

In the above example, the HSA holder maxed out their HSA for the year ($3,350). They did this by contributing $3,000 during the year (note: this $3,000 may include employer contributions), and in the following year (before April 15th) made a $350 prior year contribution. They also transferred $100 from another HSA (not counted as a contribution) and their year end balance of their HSA was $10,000.


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Boxes on Form 5498-SA

The left part of Form 5498-SA details account information about the holder and account trustee. Most of this is self explanatory, with the most important piece of information being the “Account Number” which is the identifier assigned by your HSA trustee. In theory, if you had multiple accounts (i.e. HSA and MSA) at the same trustee, you would receive two Form 5498-SA’s and the account number would be shown here.

The right section of Form 5498-SA shows activity related to your HSA in 6 key boxes:

  • Box 1 – Archer MSA contributions. This only includes Archer MSA contributions for the year and and does not apply to HSA’s.
  • Box 2 – Total Contributions. All contributions made to the HSA’s for the year are shown here. This includes qualified HSA Funding Distributions (IRA > HSA transfers) as well as employer contributions.
  • Box 3 – Prior Year Contributions. Shows all contributions made in subsequent year for prior the prior tax year.
  • Box 4 – Rollover contributions. This amount is not included in box 1, 2, or 3. Shown here are rollover contributions from other HSA (or MSA) accounts, so this does not count towards your contribution limit for the year. It is merely transferring HSA dollars to this HSA account.
  • Box 5 – Fair Market Value. The value of your account as of the end of the tax year.
  • Box 6 – Type of account. This shows the type of account being reported on Form 5498-SA, which should be “HSA”.

(Note: this form doubles for MSA’s and Medicare Advantage, but we will only discuss HSA application here).