should my wife be able to get her w-2 info prior to her company sending it to her at the end of the month?

If the company posts them to a website, she can print it out and that copy is acceptable to the IRS.

Not all companies have websites.

If her pay stubs report Year To Date in the various categories, she can get a good idea of what her W2 info will be, but it won't likely cover stuff like Deferred Compensation.

Short answer: no. The printed W2 is the authoritative report. Anything else isn't defensible if there's a disagreement with the IRS.

Be patient - there's three more weeks yet before W2s have to be mailed.

Posting W-2s to a company website poses security and privacy problems and no company should ever post such info!

The law requires companies mail out W-2s by the end of January. Your wife is not a special case and does not deserve special treatment. She probably cannot get special treatment anyway, which is as it should be.

Leave it alone!

It doesn't work that way - she'll get it when she gets it. There is lots of prep work to do at the end of the year to reconcile everything for the company payroll tax returns before W-2's are actually ready to be printed. even at tiny companies, management has lots of other things to do ahead of getting W-2's done. I'll probably have to work one or two weekends to make sure my company's W-2's are ready to go and I HAVE to get mine done by Jan 22nd because of who we use for the magnetic media processing

No, most employers give it out with the last paycheck of the month. The system is not broke and the IRS doesn't really gear up until the last week of January to handle tax returns.

You must attach the actual W2 to your tax return. Her year to date information should be on her pay stub. W2's must be issued no later than 1/31.

If you want to file sooner than that, you can file on-line, W2 forms, obviously not required

It depends on where she works but, bugging payroll about W2's is a good way to have hers "accidentally" misplaced.

no if that is company policy. What makes her so special?

Only her employer can answer that.