Does anyone know if non-cash taxable benefits (e.g. group life insurance and auto standby charges) are to be included in boxes 57 - 60 on the T4 and also on the 10% Temporary Wage Subsidy Self-Identification form?

You have just opened one nasty can of worms.  I rather suspect, if group life insurance has been continued for the laid-off employee and said employee still has use of the company vehicle, these would be considered part of the remuneration for the relevant periods.  These would affect the 10% subsidy only in that they might raise the employee above the maximum and so limit the amount of the subsidy.  I used Exel to track the employees where doing this as had a few max out.

I do know that the Canadian Payroll Association strongly urges employers to include taxable benefits on each pay statement where at all possible.  Group benefits such as life insurance are relatively easy to do within Sage though, again, I do have s/sheets as backup.  For the auto standby, my recollection is that an estimate is put on each paycheque with a final reconciliation at year-end.  This way, the proper calculations can be made for CPP, EI, and FIT.  If an employee maxes out on EI and CPP anyway, it's not so crucial except where FIT deductions are concerned, and this can be rectified by taking additional FIT on each paycheque.

I do include taxable benefits on each paycheque for my clients.  Don't happen to have any auto standby charges - for which I am profoundly grateful - but strongly recommend you get going with s/sheets in the event you do have to go back and adjust those periods.  If - as is possible - that involves a prior year, the client's accountant will need to be involved as well.

Good luck.

Hey Jo:

I fully agree that if a benefit was paid as an allowance it is to be included in the calculations. For the purposes of TWSE the amount had to be on the payment made during the three periods as this subsidy involved the amounts paid. These are the amounts which will be shown on the T4 forms in the special boxes 57 - 60. Because the subsidy is based on the amount paid within each of the Periods, Sage is likely to be able to program the completion of these boxes. If the amount was not on the pay cheques at the time I would wonder about making any changes now. If the normal accounting practices for a firm would only include an allowance, such as the car stand by charge, twice a year it would only be included for TWSE if the payment is made on a pay cheque between March 18th and June 19th. Just my way of looking at it after reading as much as I can find including the relevant sections of the ITA.

The taxable benefits were not paid to the employee, they were paid by the company which makes them non-cash taxable benefits .  I was told that non-cash taxable benefits were not to be included when I applied for the actual subsidies which is why I'm not sure if they need to be included on the new T4 Reporting requirements for boxes 57 - 60 and also on the TWS Self-Identification form.  

Interesting, mrt.  They are subject to CPP, EI, and FIT, so why wouldn't they be included as income for that period.  CRA may be ignoring them because a lot of firms do a year-end reconciliation of same and then putting them on the last paycheque of the year or making a Dec 31 adjustment.

Have this question into the Payroll Association so will see what they say.

mrf - my message may have been a little misleading. The first comment I made was my intention. The amounts for the non-cash taxable benefits and allowances had to be on the payment made. Yes, non-cash items are not paid out but they have to be included in the total remuneration for purposes of calculating the deductions. The amounts are then deducted before the cheque amount is determined. The total remuneration for each period is the important number for calculating TWSE and CEWS.

Jo, thanks for checking with the Payroll Association.  On the CRA website page for CEWS, Eligible Remuneration, it specifically says 'eligible remuneration includes amount you PAID an employee... eligible remuneration does not include amounts such as non-cash taxable benefits'

Hi - My question exactly. I made a spreadsheet for all periods involved and entered the amounts that I claimed in my CEWS - these amounts do not include Standby charges or any other non cash taxable benefits - now I'm wondering if I am supposed to include total GROSS Earnings for each period? We have already reported the non taxable benefits (usually box 40) in T4's?

Clarification by telephone with the CRA - the amounts to be reported in the four new boxes on the T4 form are the actual payments made to an employee between the dates required for each box. If a payroll payment is made on March 15th it is not included in Box 57. However, if the payment date is March 18th it is included. It is the actual payment amount and the payment date that determines how much is reported in each of the new Boxes. The claimed amounts for TWS and CEWS have no bearing on this reporting. The amounts reported are important  for the auditing of the CERB only.

Hi - Yes I understand the date parameters of the reporting periods - my question is - Taxable Benefits including Life Insurance / Auto Standby charges etc are always included in your gross Earnings. When reporting the amounts for boxes 57 - 60 are these taxable benefits also to be included in Gross Earnings for each period?

We are not reporting gross earnings, we are reporting the amount of the payroll payment. Your payroll processes normally on whichever schedule you use and including the taxable benefits and other charges if they apply to that period. At this point in time you have already made all payments within the date parameters. You do not go back and adjust payroll records, only record the actual dollars paid to the employee. If you are using the Sage 50 Payroll Module this will all be calculated for you.

Unfortunately I am currently using Sage Business Vision ( didn't notice this group was Sage 50 ). Nonetheless our payroll program updates for Jan 1/21 included the new T4 requirements and Sage Business Vision included all GROSS earnings along with the taxable benefits in boxes 57 - 60. Not sure who's right or wrong here..... T4 Box 14 is for Employment income which is gross earnings not net payable as is the case with boxes 57-60 I'm fairly certain

Yes Box 14 on the T4 is Gross Earnings, including all taxable items that have been included when calculating the tax withheld. I hope Jo has heard back from the Payroll Association as it would be interesting to get their take on this issue. Test T4s I received from Ceridian and ADP definitely included the amounts paid only and not gross pay in each box. Now I am very interested to see what Sage 50 will show when the next update is ready at the end of this week.

Alwyn, when you say 'the amounts paid only' - are you referring to gross or net amounts paid?  Net pay doesn't make sense to me because we have other deductions e.g. union dues, charitable donations, social club fees that would have nothing to do with CERB.

It will be interesting to hear what the Payroll Association says.  The CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) told me that boxes 57-60 are the gross earnings including non-cash taxable benefits paid on a date within the specified periods of boxes 57-60.   

Alwyn - the CRA website says we're reporting "employment income" in each of the four periods.  I don't think that means we just report the final dollar value on the paycheque, I think it means gross income.  Otherwise, you could have two employees with the same gross but with widely varying amounts paid, depending on their situations (eligible dependent, extra credit for RRSP's, etc.).

Have taken a look at how Sage handles non-cash taxable benefits, and said benefits are definitely included in gross income for the period in which recognized.

Will put another query into Payroll Association but it's my recollection that mrf is correct in her response.  My recollection is that Payroll Association gave the same response.

Also, it's been clarified that the amounts in those boxes reflect the date payment was actually made to the employees, with no reference to the pay period.  So for those with semi-monthly pay periods, if the first March pay was 13th March, it is not included in box 57.  However, if the paycheque was dated either March 15th or 16th, it is to be included.

Have asked Payroll Association and Knowledge Bureau for clarification with respect to those boxes.  However, there's another issue and that's how to handle the T4SUM if the client has taken ONLY the 10% deduction and not also CEWS (though that could be an issue as well; don't have clients in that situation).  As it stands, what the client actually remitted and what the sum of the boxes on the T4s say should have remitted will be out by the amount taken as the 10%.  A PD27 is supposed to have been filled out, but a lot of people don't know about that.  Understand that, once the PD27 is received, CRA is supposed to put the amount deducted as an extra payment in the client's payroll account, but haven't seen that with mine even though it was faxed over two months ago.

Jo

We have spoken with the CRA about 4 times now about the PD27 forms.  Any PD27 that is submitted is currently being reviewed.  Each and every single company will then be called to validate the information because the form was created "incorrectly" according to each person I spoke with.  Every agent has been very nice and almost apologetic even though for the two we spoke with yesterday, there was an impending 30-40 cm storm coming their way.

They just need to validate that you deducted the 10% from only the income tax portion and possibly validate a few of the pay periods.  Depending on the amount of the total deducted, it may show up in your My Business Account within a couple of days or if it is a higher amount, has to go for authorisation and will take up to a week to get to the account.

All notices regarding PIER and other amounts owing are apparently on hold until they can get through the backlog so they don't send out incorrect notices.

Thanks, Richard, for this information.  I await the call from CRA.  I agree the form is a problem.

Hi, Alwyn and all.

Have just heard back from the Payroll Association and the word is "In those boxes you would report gross income - including taxable benefits and allowances (such as the car allowance) and you would report based on pay dates that fall within the specified timelines for each box".  I hope this clarifies things.  I know this means more work for anyone doing payroll.

Has anyone tried producing T4's with Sage yet?  I note there is another release coming out but that seems to be for Quebec payroll only.

Thanks so much for the clarification. A person could go crazy trying to define CRA's instructions!

I have produced my preliminary T4's on Business Vision. Line 57 is incorrect on all 25 I printed. Boxes 58, 59 and 60 seem to be correct.

Happy Friday :-)

Thanks so much for the clarification. A person could go crazy trying to define CRA's instructions!

I have produced my preliminary T4's on Business Vision. Line 57 is incorrect on all 25 I printed. Boxes 58, 59 and 60 seem to be correct.

Happy Friday :-)

Hi. Our company pays vacation earned with each paycheck. I just did trial run of T4 to check automatic calculation of Boxes 57-60: Sage doesn't include vacation paid to this boxes ... when , in my opinion, it should be included. What did you guys do with the vacation paid amounts? Thank you.

Make sure you are using 2020.1.1 rather than just 2020.1.  The holiday-pay-each-cheque issue is the reason they issued 2020.1.1.

We use Sage 2021.1 and when I check for updates it says that it's most current version..

The update for 2021.1.1 will be rolled out this week. Everyone on a subscription which includes payroll should have this update by the end of this week. That was the latest I heard about the timing of the roll out.

Svitlana - the new update was supposed to have solved that problem.  I haven't updated yet and don't plan to run T4's until early February.

Hi, all

Attended a fairly useless webinar by CRA but did get ONE clarification.  For those who took the 10% subsidy and filled out the PD27, the amount of the subsidy is to be included in box 82 of the T4Sum.  Have confirmed this with my daughter the tax accountant, so CRA has clarified one aspect of this year's filing requirements.  

It was a  fairly useless webinar unless you are new to payroll I guess. I asked my original question regarding Gross earnings (including taxable benefits) for boxes 57-60 but they never did reply. 

Sharon - given this is T4 season and there are a lot of questions around filling them out, I had hoped the webinar would be very specific instead of meandering through T2's and other issues.  I asked the same question, but received no reply either.  Am assuming those boxes include everything including accrued vacation which was paid out.

Have just noticed a Grant Thornton blog on this subject and, I quote:

• No TWS claim: Employers who elected to receive 0% of the TWS must still submit the PD27 form.

Will try to confirm that particular nonsense.

Hey Jo - thanks for your updates from the CRA webinar. I was planning on attending but work got in the way. I also have seen Grant Thornton's comments regarding the PD27. I am guessing that this ties back to the option to claim the TWSE as late as when filing the PD27. I think it was on TaxTips this comment was made but I cannot locate the email. 

Sharon: I have just checked T4s prepared by ADP and Ceridian and they both have included taxable benefits which makes up the gross payroll amounts.in the four new boxes.

It's unfortunate CRA has not even posted a FAQ on this subject. I believe I have also read this on the CRA website and have heard there will be fines to those who do not file the PD27  - even if you elected to receive 0% of the TWS

Hi, all

Am just off the phone.  A very nice woman from CRA called re the PD27 I submitted on behalf of a client.  CRA agents are MANUALLY checking those forms as there has been a lot of confusion surrounding them.  She confirmed that it was the date cheques were actually cut and NOT the pay period that matters.  Also, she said it was the lesser of three amounts:

1)  $25,000 per business

2)  the number of eligible employees x $1,375

3)  10% of gross payroll

So, in the event you have a mix of employees over and under the $1,375 max, then go to the 10% of gross payroll and look at that as will be entitled to more than if you'd looked at each employee's pay and lowered those who had reached the maximum.

This is totally contrary to the advice I was given early on about this, when was told that had to look at each employee individually when figuring out eligible pay.

She also said to put the ACTUAL amount remitted on the T4SUM and let the computer match things up at their end.  This is opposite of what I have been told (which was to include the subsidy in the box for the amount remitted), and could cause issues of its own.  It will be okay for this client as - by the time I file the T4SUM - the credit from the PD27 will have been entered.  Might not be so good for other clients where the PD27 is being sorted out at year-end.

Hope this helps.

Jo

Thanks, Jo,  for this update. It coincides with what I have been total. You have also mentioned the confusion around this reporting and it has been significant. If more people would post their experience directly from CRA it might help.

You're welcome, Alwyn.  The confusion is so great that it's taking everyone's contributions to sort things out.

Hi, Alwyn and all

Have just seen a report from CBC which says CRA has locked online accounts, telling users their email addresses have been removed from their accounts - error 021.  It may or may not be related to applications for CERB/CRB, and there are indications an investigation is underway.