Final paycheck after employee admits lying about SSN

A: Neither. If you report the wages to the IRS using a SSN that you know to be incorrect, you could face penalties. At the same time, you don’t want to report wages to a potentially questionable SSN. The IRS doesn’t offer any specific guidance about your situation, but they do have guidance regarding new employees who don’t provide an SSN. In that case, employers are to complete a W-2 form by entering all zeros (0) in the box requesting the employee’s SSN.

Vigilant recommends reporting final wages in the same way. You’ll want to complete Form W-2C, “Corrected Wage and Tax Statement” and Form W-3C, “Transmittal of Corrected Wage and Tax Statements,” by putting zeros in the box provided for the employee’s SSN. This way, the IRS knows that you didn’t intentionally report the employee’s wages under the wrong SSN and that you’ve corrected the reporting error once it was discovered.