New T4 reporting requirements

For the 2020 tax year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will be introducing additional reporting for the T4 slip, Statement of Remuneration Paid.

Additional reporting requirements will apply to all employers, and will help the CRA validate payments under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB).

Please note that employers who have already filed their T4 slips and summary for 2020 will not need to refile.

How to report employment income during COVID-19 pay periods

For the tax year 2020, in addition to reporting employment income in Box 14 or Code 71, use new other information codes when reporting employment income and retroactive payments in the following periods:

Code 57: Employment income – March 15 to May 9
Code 58: Employment income – May 10 to July 4
Code 59: Employment income – July 5 to August 29
Code 60: Employment income – August 30 to September 26

Eligibility criteria for the CERB, CEWS, and CESB is based on employment income for a defined period. The new requirement means employers should report income and any retroactive payments made during these periods.

Example
If you are reporting employment income for the period of April 25 to May 8, payable on May 14, use code 58.

Update to Jan 2021 Payroll Tax Table – By QuickBooks for Desktop Editions

What happened?
As part of the January 2021 payroll tax table update, QuickBooks included the new T4 boxes 57-60 for COVID-19 government relief payments. Currently these boxes do not auto-fill and require manual calculations and editing from the user. Based on the feedback they received, they have an update scheduled for release in early February that will make them auto-fill while still letting you edit them as needed.

What should you do?
If you have the ability to wait, then please be patient while they are working to bring you this new software as fast as they can. They will be sending another notification to out when the new feature is available.

If you do not have the ability to wait until February QuickBooks has devised a new community article in their Live Community to assist you in gaining the information to populate and fill in these new boxes in your tax forms.