Final answer:
Employers must provide former employees with their Form W-2 by January 31st following the tax year of termination. The choices given in the question do not align with IRS guidelines, as none of the specified timeframes matches the actual requirement.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question is about the timeframe within which an employer must provide a terminated employee with a Form W-2 upon request. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines, employers must send the Form W-2 to outgoing employees by January 31st of the year following the tax year in question. Therefore, for an employee terminated on 7/1/16 and requesting their 2016 Form W-2 the following week, the employer would have to provide it by January 31, 2017. This is beyond the 10, 20, or 30-day options provided in the question, which suggests that none of the given choices is correct.