Section 2. What’s New

.01 Logos, slogans, and advertising. Forms W-2 and W-3 are subject to annual review and possible change. The IRS has postponed the prohibition against including slogans, advertising, and logos on information returns and employee copies reporting wages paid during the 2011 calendar year that was announced in Rev. Proc. 2010-42 (the previous issue of Publication 1141). The prohibition is now in effect for reporting wages paid in 2012 and thereafter. Do not include logos, slogans or advertising on any information returns or employee copies filed in 2012 or thereafter, except as provided in Section 1.04. This revenue procedure may be revised to state other requirements of the IRS and the SSA regarding the preparation and use of substitute forms for Form W-2 and Form W-3 at a future date. If you have comments about the prohibition against including logos, slogans, and advertising on information returns and employee copies, send or email your comments to: Internal Revenue Service, Attn: Substitute Forms Program, SE:W:CAR:MP:T:M:S, IR 6526, 1111 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20224, or Substituteforms@irs.gov.

.02 Optional 2D barcoding for Forms W-2 and W-3. In response to feedback from the user community, the SSA (and the IRS) have added a barcoded version for the substitute Form W-2 and Form W-3 to the list of acceptable submission formats. This version is an optional alternative to the non-barcoded substitute Forms W-2 and W-3. Both versions are fully supported by the SSA. At this time, neither the IRS nor the SSA mandates the use of barcoded substitute forms. See new Section 1B.07 of Part B. Also, see the SSA website at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/bso .

Note. The data contained in the barcode must not differ from the data displayed on the form. The data in the barcode will be ignored and the data displayed on the form will be considered the submission.

.03 Substitute black-and-white forms name change. The Social Security Administration is changing the name “Laser Forms” to “Substitute black-and-white Copy A and W-3 forms.”

.04 SSA email address change. The Social Security Administration is changing the email address “ laser.forms@ssa.gov ” to “ copy.a.forms@ssa.gov .” The address is changed throughout this document.

.05 SSA address change. The Attention line for the SSA Data Operations Center is now Substitute Black-and-White Copy A Forms, Room 348.

.06 New Part B, Section 3. We added a new Part B, Section 3, to provide guidelines for the electronic delivery of Form W-2 and W-2c recipient statements.

.07 Revised Part C, Section 4. Part C, Section 4, has been revised to reflect changes concerning IRS Publication 1796. .08 Website reference change. The IRS website will now be referred to as IRS.gov rather than www.irs.gov. .09 Enterprise Computing Center name change. The Enterprise Computing Center – Martinsburg (ECC) is now referred to as The Internal Revenue Service/Information Returns Branch (IRS/IRB). Section 1.05, Part A, is updated.

.10 Editorial changes. We made editorial changes. Redundancies were eliminated as much as possible.