Picture this, it’s a few weeks from tax time and I’m preparing my business taxes. This is the first year filing as an S-Corp, so the process is a little different.
Preparing and filing my federal and state taxes for the business is straightforward. Everything is going smoothly and once the local taxes are done that will be it for annual filings.
But, wait…there’s a roadblock. I’m filing the local taxes and the regional tax authority is requesting an EFW2 file. Surely, that’s just a PDF W2…sadly it isn’t. And, even though it’s two weeks away, suddenly I’m feeling a little frantic: how am I go to get this file, does my tax software have it? Am I going to be able to get in time? The rabbit hole opens up and I jump right in.
A few days later after trying to use Excel templates, ChatGPT, Gemini and even Claude, and I still don’t have a working file. I eventually figured it out and learned a ton about the EFW2 format in the process. And, most of all, I learned what didn’t work! There seemed to be a few options, but each one had it’s own drawback and ultimately couldn’t create a correctly formatted file.
It probably sounds cliche, but it was at that point that I felt no one should have to go through that again. So, I reached out to a friend who develops apps for small businesses and we started building EFW2 Generator.
Our goal is simple, to make it easy to convert W2 files into EFW2 files so you can submit them to your local and state tax authorities. There are specific requirements for the filetype and we are developing a web-based app that will meet those requirements and provide a secure file for download.
The development process is going well and we’re looking forward to opening the app up to our beta testers soon!
Until then, know that you’re not alone and EFW2 Generator will be here soon!
– Seth @ EFW2 Generator