Starting with the 2026 tax year, a new two-letter code can appear in the small box 12 area of a W-2. The IRS added it to track money an employer deposits into a Trump account, the new tax-advantaged account for children and workers created under the 2025 tax law. Most workers will never see it, because employers are not required to offer the benefit.
The question for a parent or employee whose employer pays into a Trump account is what box 12 shows and whether that figure matches the deposits actually made.
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Code TA is the new entry
The IRS’s 2026 General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 list the new entry as box 12, code TA. The page describes it as “Employer contributions under a section 128 Trump account contribution program paid to a Trump account of an employee or a dependent of an employee.”
Box 12 is the part of the W-2 where employers report certain benefits and contributions using letter codes. Code TA is new for 2026, so no earlier W-2 carries it.
Employer money is capped at $2,500 a year
IRS Publication 15-A, the employer’s supplemental tax guide, says that starting July 4, 2026, employers may contribute up to $2,500 a year toward an account. That amount counts toward an annual limit of $5,000 on the account, and both figures are to be adjusted for inflation after tax year 2027.
The IRS notice that laid out the rules says the $2,500 limit applies per employee, not per child. An employer paying into several children’s accounts can put in only $2,500 in total for 2026, according to Notice 2025-68.
The money can go to a worker or a dependent
A contribution can be paid into the Trump account of the employee or of an employee’s dependent. Publication 15-A describes the accounts as a traditional IRA-type account for a child under 18 at the end of the year the account is established.
Employer contributions made under a qualifying program are excluded from the employee’s gross income, the IRS says. The exclusion tops out at the $2,500 limit, so anything above it is a different tax matter.
Employers need a written program to use the code
Under Notice 2025-68, the deposits must come from a separate written plan of an employer for the exclusive benefit of its employees. The notice says the program has to follow rules similar to those for dependent care assistance programs, covering discrimination, eligibility, notification and statements.
The notice also says a program may be funded by salary reduction through a cafeteria plan only for a dependent’s account, not the employee’s own account. The employer must tell the account trustee that a deposit is a section 128 contribution. Notice 2025-68 does not address W-2 reporting, which is why the W-2 instructions are the place the code appears.
The Treasury’s $1,000 is a different payment
Code TA covers employer contributions only. The Treasury’s $1,000 pilot deposit is a separate program, and the IRS’s instructions for Form 4547 say it is for a child who is a U.S. citizen with a valid Social Security number and born after December 31, 2024, and before January 1, 2029.
The same instructions say an account is opened by an election on Form 4547, and that contributions cannot be made to a Trump account before July 4, 2026. A parent who sees a figure in box 12 should not expect it to include the Treasury’s deposit, since that money does not come from an employer.
What box 12 can and cannot show
The W-2 instructions cover how employers report the code, not how any one employer set up a program. Employees with questions about whether a program exists, which accounts it pays into, or how a deposit was split between a worker and a dependent have to ask the payroll or benefits office.
Anyone who receives a W-2 with code TA in January has a number to compare against account statements. Both should show the same employer deposits for 2026, and the $2,500 per employee limit applies to the total across all accounts.
Does the box 12 figure match what the employer actually deposited for a child’s account?
Employer money that lands in a Trump account never shows up in take-home pay, so it is easy to lose track of next to the bills a household pays every month. A code TA figure that is off, or a $2,500 limit that quietly gets used up, only becomes visible if someone has the numbers written down.
The Retirement Money Spreadsheets hold four workbooks that do the math once numbers go into the yellow boxes. The Retirement Budget lists every bill, monthly and yearly, and the Retirement Paycheck workbook shows what savings can pay each month, so the money going into an account is set against the money going out.
Set the W-2 figure beside every bill in the retirement budget spreadsheets →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
