How to Get a W-4 Form for Your Job

Whether you have just started a new job or faced changes in your financial or tax status, the IRS Form W-4, titled Employee's Withholding Certificate, is part and parcel of legalizing your situation. What is a W-4? It is a tax form you use to inform your employer of the amount to be withheld from your paycheck as federal tax. That is, failing to furnish a duly filled out W-4 might bring about exaggerated taxes or even legal trouble. Here is a concise and simple guide on how to get a copy of W-4 the easiest way.

Get Form W-4

A man working on a laptop

How to Get a W-4 form

Form W-4 on PDFLiner

There are three main strategies for obtaining a fillable W-4.

Firstly, PDFLiner offers its users a wide range of IRS and other tax reporting forms in PDF format, all with the necessary data fields ready to be filled with your information. These can be found under PDF Forms. You can access the W-4 PDF directly and start filling it out on PDFLiner straightaway. There is a straightforward guide on how to fill out a W-4 form on the website.

Secondly, your employer is supposed to provide you with a copy of the IRS Employee's Withholding Certificate when you start working for them. If this is the case, it is likely to be partly filled out.

Finally, the form itself along with the official W-4 instructions can be found in the respective section of the IRS website. This approach won’t save you much time as you still need to open the form using PDF software for editing, but it’s a valid way of obtaining a copy.

Form W4

FAQ

In this section, we briefly answer common questions concerning W-4.

What is the purpose of the W-4 form?

This form is used to let employers know how much tax is to be withheld from their employee’s paycheck based on their income and dependents.

What are W-4 allowances?

Allowances were previously used to reduce the amount to be withheld. Currently, though, this is done based on dependents and/or the deductions worksheet.

Do employers send W-4 to the IRS?

Not unless they are expressly directed to for the purpose of review. Otherwise, the form serves the sole purpose of informing the employer.

Who should fill out a W-4?

The form is to be filled out by employees starting a new job who don’t have one on their file with the employer yet. Changes to the employee’s financial status that affect the amount to be withheld from their remuneration are another reason to re-submit W-4.

Fill PDFs Easily with PDFLiner

Try the online PDF editor today

Fill Out W-4 Form

Dmytro Serhiiev
CEO of PDFLiner