Where do you report the fact that an employer or former employer has not distributed T4 slips by the end of February? Thanks

Hi Nicole,
Unfortunately, there is no way to report. The employer can give you your T4 late, or not at all. If you former employer ran out of business and it was a small business, don’t count on receive a T4. CRA may trace them for it with massive penalties, but it has nothing to do with the former employees. The CRA knows who has not been submitting on time, no report is needed.
Cecilia

Further on Nicole’s question, who can I talk to if my employer is saying they won’t be handing out T4′s until March 6 or 8th? Are they going to have to pay the penalty for each employee and how does the CRA know the employer is so late? Thanks~

Hi Amanda,
You don’t really need to talk to anyone, March 6 or 8 is not too late. The employer may just have some issue printing and it takes time for the payroll or HR to catch up with all the work. As long as you receive your T4 around mid April so you have sufficient time to file you tax before the deadline April 30th. The employer needs to file a copy of all the employees T4 to CRA, and they need to do so before end of Feb, that’s how CRA knows the employer is late. Your employer might not be late filing to the government, but may need to also do extra printing and organization tasks such as printing envelopes, sorting out T4 to distribution to different departments, etc. A few days late is normal.
Cecilia

If an employer uses an accountant to prepare T4′s, whose responsibility is it if they are late? Is it possible that a copy could have been sent to the CRA but not to employees? The only answer I can get from my employer is that “the accountant is lazy” and I don’t feel as though that is acceptable. I am greatly inconvenienced by not being able to file my taxes yet.

Hi Sarah,
It is possible that a copy of your T4 have been sent to the CRA, but not to you yet. It depends on the contract between the accountant and the employer to determine who is responsible for late submission penalities and all. However it sounds like your employer may have hired their own accountant, then it is up to your employer to deal with the accountant, after all the accountant is his/her employee. April 30th is the deadline to file tax. I understand you may want your tax refund asap. I suggest you to call CRA, 1-800-959-8281. Ask the CRA agent if your employer has submitted your T4. If they did, ask him/her to give your T4 information. You can use that information to file your taxes.
Cecilia

“I cannot stress enough that the deadline of T4 (and all other slips) is last day of Feburary. But, just in case you are late, here is the penalty you will need to pay:

Penalty of each T4 slip failure to file is $25 a day, with a minimum penalty of $100 and a maximum of $2500″

So there is a “rule” but they dont enforce it? How ridiculous is that!? I just received my t4 from my employer and it is postmarked for March 6, and they told me when I called they were mailed out Feb. 27th. So not only did they lie to me, they mailed it a week late as well. Unacceptable that I cannot report their lie and have some sort of recourse.

Hi Jennifer,
To make you feel better, if in fact they were submitted your T4 late to the CRA, CRA will go after them for the hefty penalties.

whens late, late? Its now march 9th and nothing yet, but they are swearing they were sent out on the 28th

i’ve been waiting for my T4 forever since the company i worked for went into a “pause” <<<they actually closed or went bankrupt but they used this line for some reason…and then refused to pay us severence pay. Anyways, It is now the end of March and no clue wtf is up. I’ve been calling and my ex-boss hasn’t bothered to call me. I think most of my other ex-colleagues received theirs tho. I called CRA and they informed me no 2008 T4 was filed to them either… what do i do with my income tax returns then???? I threw out all my pay stubs from that company.

I am sorry to hear you trouble. The economy does have a huge impact on small business, a lot of small business are in trouble even paying someone to do their accounting work for them simply because the banks have shut them down completely. Anyway, here is what you need to do. Don’t bother calling your ex-boss, most likely you won’t hear from him/her. Here’s what you need to do:
1. Estimate how much you earn over the year (just an estimate is good enough if you don’t have paystub, it is not uncommon that people does not keep their paystub). The easiest way is to estimate how much you earn each month, from Jan to Dec, and of course you didn’t earn any for the months you didn’t get pay.
2. Type / Write up a brief letter, briefly explain your situation that despite your effort to contact your employer, you still cannot get your T4 or any income information. Provide your employer’s company name, his/her name if you know, and the address of the business. Then briefly explain how you estimate your income for the year.
3. File your income information. It can be a bit tricky, the easiest way to do this is collect these information to fill in your tax return:
a) your estimate total income
b) taxes you paid (estimate income – $9600 – (estimate income * tax rate))
c) your CPP amount ((estimate income – $3500) * 4.95%)
d) your EI amount (estimate income * 1.73%)
e) and of course all of your other tax benefits you can claim, such as RRSP, Universal Child Benefit, etc.
You can go to http://wizebiz.ca/blog/2009/02/28/tax-rate-2008 to find the tax rate.
Do not worry about the discrepency on the amount, the government will adjust and calculate them for you. The above estimate should gives you a very close estimate to the taxes, CPP and EI the employers deducted from your paycheck.

I will try to put up an article on how you can calculate these numbers more precisely hopefully within next two weeks. I would love to post it up earlier but this is tax season and it is our busiest days over the year! However I understand it is critical to get your tax refund asap. I would suggest you to file your tax, even just calculate those figures, and go into another local accountant or even HR block to do your taxes with those number. Without them most accountants won’t do a thing for you.
Good Luck.
Cecilia

My daughter has not received a T4 from a past employer, she is a student and therefore I cannot file my taxes until we receive this T4. I have no other documents to estimate her earnings, since pay statements were intermittent and she did not receive a final one when she quit. She also did not receive a record of employment. Yes, we have filed a claim with the labour board. But here we sit at the mercy of this employer who snubs her nose at the labour laws. She has taken advantage of a young 18 year old girl and I refuse to continue watch this happen. What do you suggest at this point.

For several years in a row now, I've been receiving my T4 late from an employer. I emailed the owner the other day asking about this year's T4, and received the response that he “ran out of time” and now he and his family are vacationing in Florida, so I'll have to wait until he gets back. That seems pretty unacceptable to me. How reliably does the CRA go after a case like this, particularly a chronic abuser?

For several years in a row now, I've been receiving my T4 late from an employer. I emailed the owner the other day asking about this year's T4, and received the response that he “ran out of time” and now he and his family are vacationing in Florida, so I'll have to wait until he gets back. That seems pretty unacceptable to me. How reliably does the CRA go after a case like this, particularly a chronic abuser?

This site better get it's facts straight! According to the government website (which is never wrong yeah right) the costs are $10.00 PER DAY for T4's below fifty reporting with a maximum penalty of $1000.00

plus, you are considered guilty of not submitting even if you did by mail and they didn't receive it via government mail. So, send ALL of your submissions to the government via courier / registered signed mail or face getting fined!!! I have just spent three months and thousands of dollars on this issue. Makes me wonder what the hell i'm doing when I could be serving fries at McDonalds. When is the Canadian Governement going to realize that we don't live in Nazi Germany!!! I've been in business 20 years, it's not like this is my first kick at the can here.