No. Client never worked at the dealership. He just purchased a car from them

IF THEY ARE THAT SLOPPY WITH THEIR PAPERWORK  I hate to think what kind of services they are going to provide for the car,

Did your client finance the car thru the dealership?  If so, 'they' have a lot of personal info so consider identity theft.

First step should be for your client to CALL the dealership & ask "WTH" is going on.

Thank you

ill have to ask. I will have him call

Keep us posted.... I really hope it is just a clerical error by the dealership. 

Out of curiosity, how much was the W-2 for and were there any information boxes filled in?

And you are sure it's a W-2, not a F 1099-NEC or MISC (I'm thinking SPIFF possibility) altho that shouldn't apply to just a random buyer.

Does your client remember giving the dealership their SSN ?

$252.90

ss, Medicare, and Sdi are withheld

Client said dealership is now closed.

Since they are now closed, I'm guessing someone was taking wages out of the business but didn't want to report the income so they just spread the income out with some unsuspecting car purchasers.  At least that's what my cynical side is telling me.

That's a bit scary....

@lo92677 

So, after all that, your client DID work for the dealership ????????????????????

No he didn’t work for them,

he bought a car from them

Who knows 

I'm not sure why @TaxGuyBill 's answer was accepted as a solution, when it was in the form of a question ("Did he work there?") but I'm picturing this as a used car lot, with no vehicles with less than 50K miles on them, that was staying one step ahead of MVD.  And maybe they refunded part of the purchase price or fees to this buyer, and the old bookkeeper left and the new one who came in just to help with closing it down, took the path of least resistance.  If it had happened in 2019 or 2020, it might have added to the PPP "loan", right?  

So why did you mark it solved ?

There’s no clear answer / resolution. 

the dealership is now closed. So, the client can’t call and ask why he got a. W2.

all of the responses were helpful. 

I didn’t know how to close the question out on the forum.   Is there a way to do that ??

There’s no clear answer / resolution. 

Then it isn't 'solved' now is it?  Future searchers will be confused.

There's no need to 'close it out'

That W-2 is supposed to have a phone number on it. Did anyone call?

Just a wild hair.

The number is probably 867-5309.

I think that phone number requirement applies only to 1099s.

 Employees in accounting/finance departments of established dealerships are paid quite well. They also like to issue a lot of forms, like 1099 misc/nec forms. Therefore I would think that an error like this would not occur, if that is what it is. Could be an honest mistake, but who knows.

I missed the part about this being an "established dealership."  I just saw where the taxpayer said it went out of business.  

@BobKamman no they did not say that. I was just saying that as part of my post. Probably wasn't an established dealership or they wouldn't have went out of business. But who knows. Established dealership owners usually sell to other established dealerships or another businessman when they want to get out of the business. They usually don't close.

This is the type of question that piques the interest of some of us.  It's as good as a "who done it" story.

I'm curious if the number on the W-2 ties to any of the entries on the purchase documents for the vehicle. 

Let's not forget the years that Pacific Power issued W-2s to their retired employees for the the discount they receive on their power bills as a retirement benefit.  They got their hand slapped and it took me a couple of cases to figure out we wouldn't be getting those W-2s for 2022.