People I do not have good news. I have been on the phone with a QB rep here in the states for over and hour and a half. She has been communicating with the back office and QB will no longer efile or allow hiring of anyone without a SS# per the updates from the IRS. IF you have employees in the system with ITIN or ITHS (I do not know what this is) or have been here on a temp VISA you may continue to run your PR but you will not be able to hire anyone new. I had to install a recent backup to have numbers in for employees I had taken out to try to run and file my W2's and then it would not allow me to put the numbers back in since they are ITIN's. We will have to manually input all data in the BSO website to file and print W2's. Per QB "QB no longer support anyone without a SS#, anyone here on temp VISA, ITIN, or ITHS".  Currently PR will process for these employees but when I asked if an update could stop that in the future the answer was "I cannot answer that for you." It appears all PR systems will be operating with these new requirements. Are any of them still working with the other numbers? I do not know but may reach of to others I know to find out. IF indeed they will all be changing to support these requirements, there will not be a work around in any other  software. I feel everyone should have been properly notified of this as this thread shows everyone has been wanting answers for over 3 quarters now and could have been updated to know how to proceed and known we wouldn't be able to efile as required. I had planned to wait closer to the deadline in hopes of a work around or update to resolve but there will not be one!

Basically all of the information that was given to you by Intuit sounds like nonsense to me!  There have been no such changes to the rules from the IRS and the SSA.

No matter, they are not going to update or change so we will have to manual file. If you contact them and receive anything different please post. I don't have any more time to stalk this thread, I will get emails regarding updated comments that take place. Knowing that the info I received came from an American that clearly understands English, and gave me info that there will not be an update, I'm still going to have to go the BSO by 1/31/24. Good luck everyone and it would be great if the info I received was incorrect but I don't think there will be any upcoming changes in our favor!

Sick of waiting, I just built a little free utility that bypasses the QuickBooks restriction and lets you set the SSN to nine zeros. See https://bigredconsulting.com/products/employee-fixer/

Once the employees are updated then the W-2's print "Applied for" as expected - and required!

BIG RED,  any way in make your file allow use to enter the ITIN number we want to use?

for the folks who need to use ITIN's and want to figure a work around,

go into employee section

add employee using a real SS number (made up one) or edit an existing one

make what ever changes you need to the employee card/file my example is the Hourly Pay Rate

export the employee list as a .iif file,  

open file using note pad,  find the correct line and change the made up SS number to what you want it to read, either [removed] or the correct itin number

import the .iff file (manually and don't let quick books look for errors)

hope that helps, 

January 11, 2024 and the W2's cannot be e-filed. Even though Quickbooks pops up a window in the beginning stating that they will send the report accordingly to each agency. The two employees that we hired, had a valid SSN but we later found out to be invalid after being laid off. I cannot add "[removed]" or "999-99-999"

I already submitted feedback as well. No solution.

I just prepared my first payroll with missing SSNs (they are H2B workers who have not yet received their numbers).  It was quite a work around - had to prepare W-3 and W-2's for those I can e-file, and prepare the others to be typed and mailed.  Only 4 for this client so didn't want to mess with BSO.

It is going to be a long month.

This is it... the easy fix! Thanks very much.

BIG RED'S utility above is the fix that worked for me.

Tried to only e-file those W2s that I have SSNs for - nope, QB won't let me due to errors in the employees I did not select.  Intuit's faulty decisions are making this very difficult.

I don't have many so I went to the BSO site and entered them all. Using 0's for my 2 ITIN employees, and they went right though. Not thrilled to be paying for software that makes me manually enter in the BSO site to efile but it did work. 

I need to process multi state payroll with Quickbooks Pro Desktop.  In order to do that last year I created two employees with the same social security number for each state.  Last year I was able to print W-2's with the correct social security numbers.  Now during the middle of the year quickbooks decided to change the software so that two employees cannot have the same social security number.  How am I supposed to print W-2's correctly when quickbooks will not accept an override for the social security number when reviewing the W-2;'s 

Allow me to chime in on this thread to assist you with SSN concerns in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), @DonnaS3. I also appreciate you, @Debbie-tlc, for sharing the workaround you have done to submit W-2.

I acknowledge the importance of reverting the options by allowing the application to enter a dummy SSN upon setting up your employees. The emotions that you’re experiencing right now regarding the application’s ability to file W-2 are valid, and we’re working on it to make QuickBooks better for your filing journey.

You’re right that the option mentioned above is a product limitation and is being worked on by our product engineers. Since they are working on this internally, we can't provide a specific turnaround time for their efforts.

In the meantime, I suggest customers wait for their employee’s SSN to be available before filing online. Or, file their W2 through mail. Also, there are other user suggestions in this thread that you might want to consider trying to stay compliant with the IRS. 

Moreover, we can’t guarantee that customers will receive an email once it’s available. Rest assured, that this will be added on future updates.

Furthermore, QuickBooks provides different payroll reports that display your employee's gross pay, deductions, and tax information during a specific period. These payroll reports can help you get a better understanding of your payroll. To access a complete list of available payroll reports and instructions on how to obtain them, please refer to this article.: Run payroll reports.

If you need further assistance with managing your paycheck or any QuickBooks-related matters, feel free to reach out and post your concerns. I'm available to help you out anytime. Take care!

Once again, Intuit does not seem to understand the reality of processing payroll.  In my case, I have H2B workers who do not receive SSNs for months after applying, yet they are legal to work.  In this case, the IRS allows Applied for to be entered on a W2 in the SSN box - Intuit has decided that they will not follow IRS guidelines.  Also, if you have 10 or more W2s you have to e-file, we don't have the luxury of mailing them in.

I have 453 W2's and the SSA and IRS does not allow me to mail them out. We will get fined if they are not efiled. Quickbooks will not allow to efile or override those SSN on the W2 as it used to before. IRS will accept "[removed]" and "[removed]". Intuit needs to understand, we have a deadline to get this fixed ASAP

@DonnaS3 

I just changed our free Employee Fixer so that you can now set SSN's to any number you want, including all zeros for 'Applied for' on SSN's and it also handles saving two or more employee records with the same SSN.

Read more about it and get it here: https://bigredconsulting.com/products/employee-fixer/

@greenT E C H  RE: BIG RED, any way in make your file allow use to enter the ITIN number we want to use?

I made a change yesterday to our free tool so that you can now assign any 9-digit number as the SSN:

https://bigredconsulting.com/products/employee-fixer/

I'd take caution if not using an actual SSN from the employee's Social Security card. An ITIN will cause a flag at the SSA and you'll be notified to fix it and file a W2-C with the correction. Only SSN's should be used on a W-2 form.

I was given a work around to the two employees with the same social security number issue.  If you make one of the employees inactive, while in the inactive state, QB will allow you to enter the same social security number.  I first created my W-2s then used the review/edit feature to "combine" the two W-2s (added the income and taxes to one W-2 and changed the other to all zeros).  I then saved and exited the W-2s, went into the employees and made the the employee I change to all zeros inactive.  Once inactive, I was able to enter in the same SSN.  I left that employee inactive, opened up my saved W-2s in QB, unchecked the two employees that now have zero income and taxes on the one W-2, and was able to to e-file all of the "active" W-2s without issue.  NOTE:  QB will not allow you to make the inactive employee profile active again with the same SSN, so this does not resolve the long-term issue QB has cause with this update, but it does get you through this year's W-2 cycle at least.

Most of our employees are inactive since we have seasonal workers in agriculture. My system will NOT allow me to make any changes to their SSN even if they are inactive. INTUIT does not seem to understand that we have deadlines to meet and that not every business can file by mail. We HAVE TO Efile. Quickbooks should allow us to override the W2's SSN as it used to years ago, then we can deal with IRS/SSA ourselves after the we have filed if something isn't "correct" in an employee's SSN.

Apparently, Intuit thinks they know more than those of use who have been doing this for years.

We have one employee out of 169 that has an ITIN#. QuickBooks allowed us to enter it back in March and process payroll. He only worked that one day because we told him we needed the SS# but I still needed to process and efile my W2's. Yesterday when trying to do this, I got the same error that the others did about an invalid SS#. Today, however, I went in and removed the SS# altogether to see if that would help. It did not but when I went back into the employee record in QB's, it let me enter [removed]. It popped up something but I accidentally clicked okay and it went away so I didn't get to read what it said but when I re-tried the W2's it printed on the W2 as "Applied for". I was also able to efile the W2's. I haven't gotten a confirmation that they were accepted yet but I'm praying that it went through! Maybe the latest update fixed the problem?! 

Hi there, @SrAcct1.

Allow me to provide some information about how the recent updates for QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

I'm pleased to inform you that an update has been released for QuickBooks Desktop, enabling the entry of zeroes for SSNs in supported versions. It's great to hear that you were able to successfully file your W-2s with the help of this recent update.

If your employees are enrolled in QuickBooks Workforce, they'll be able to access W-2 copies B, C, and 2 by January 31st. Historical tax forms for the past two years are accessible, as well. For more detailed information, please refer to this article: View and print your W-2s in QuickBooks Workforce.

You can check the status of the payroll tax forms and payments you electronically submitted through QuickBooks to the IRS or state agencies. A step-by-step guide is provided in this article: Check the status of your payroll tax payments or filings sent through QuickBooks Payroll.

Keep us posted if you have more questions about filing your taxes in QuickBooks. We're just one post away to help.

I guess better late than never (as I have already done a work around to file W-2s).

I appreciate the reply but this is a long thread, 4 pages, and if you or others at Intuit knew that the problem had been fixed, the least you could have done is let these people know. That is what I was trying to do. 

You folks must get some sort of points for just replying but in our book, a reply that actually answers the question, earns us the most points. 

Thanks anyway.