It’s tax (slip) season

The deadline for filing your 2015 T4 tax slips is Monday, February 29th, 2016. You must provide your employees with a paper or electronic copy of their T4 by this date. So it’s crunch time for preparing T4 tax slips in Canada. You also need to provide copies of the T4 slips to the Canadian Revenue Agency, along with the T4 Summary for your company on February 29, 2016.

If you are filing more than 50 T4 slips you must file electronically, not by mail. Here are some of the most important points to understand for filing T4s and T4As for the 2015 tax year, compiled into the ultimate resource with links to the appropriate sections of the Canada Revenue Agency website.

Filing T4 Slips

A few notes on the important lines to fill out on each employee’s T4 slips with links to more information on the CRA website. Be sure to check out the CRA’s complete guidelines for completing the T4 slips.

  • Box 14 – Employment Income: Input the amount of salary and wages, bonuses, vacation, taxable benefits etc.
    • Code 40: In addition to any taxable benefits included in box 14, enter the amount of any taxable allowances or benefits provided to an employee in the ‘Other Information’ section of the T4 slip with “Code 40”
    • The CRA provides a detailed account of the many types of benefits and allowances that can be included in an employee’s income
  • Boxes 16 & 17 – CPP or QPP Contributions: Input the employee’s contributions that were deducted from pensionable earnings
    • The maximum contribution amount, for employer and employee, is $2,479.95, or 4.95% of the pensionable earnings
    • Maximum pensionable earnings for 2015 are $53,600 and the basic exemption amount is $3,500
  • Box 18 – Employee’s EI Premiums: Input the amount of EI you deducted from the employee’s earnings
    • The EI premium rate for 2015 is 1.88%, up to a maximum of $930.60 deducted for the year
  • Box 24 – EI Insurable Earnings: Input the total amount of insurable earnings that were used to calculate EI contributions
    • Maximum annual insurable earnings for 2015 is $49,500
    • Code 42 – Employment Commissions: Input the amount of commissions paid to an employee in the ‘Other Information’ section of the T4 slip with “Code 42” (Be sure to include this amount in Box 14 as well)
  • Box 26 – CPP/QPP Pensionable Earnings: Input the total amount of pensionable earnings paid to the employee, up to $53,600 (This amount is usually equal to Box 14)

Filing T4A Slips

The T4A slip is a different kind of tax slip that you generally prepare for independent contractors or anyone that you have paid other types of income related to employment. Filing a T4A is typically optional, but it becomes mandatory if you have deducted income tax from any payment, or if all the payments totaled more than $500.

  • You can submit your T4As by mail unless you are filing more than 50, in which case you must file electronically
  • Box 20 – Self-employed Commissions: Input the amount of commissions paid to an independent agent, but do not include any GST/HST paid
  • Box 22 – Income Tax Deducted: If you deducted income tax from the recipient, then you input the total here
  • Box 48 – Fees for Services: Input the total amount paid for services, but do not include any GST/HST paid

Tips

Make sure you report the amounts in Canadian currency (sorry, Bitcoin not accepted yet).

Do you have staff in Québec? You’ll need to fill out an RL-1 as well.

Simplify by using PaymentEvolution Payroll

If you are thinking about filling out your slips by hand or are planning to sit at your laptop for hours manually creating these T4 statements – STOP. Using PaymentEvolution Payroll will reduce the process time to just a few minutes – and you’ll even be able to file the slips electronically to the Canada Revenue Agency. Oh, and you’ll be able to do this for every province and territory in Canada – including creating the RL-1 slips for Québec. Make this tax (slip) season stress-free with PaymentEvolution.