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Filing T4 at the Last Minute!

8 February, 2008 (11:00) | Corporate Tax, Small Business Tax | By: Cecilia Leung

Deadline is closed to file your T4 to your employees and maybe yourself. CRA actually make it easy for you the employer to file T4 (as usual government invest lots of tax payers’ money to ensure the CRA their money!)

What do you need to file:
1. T4 slips for all your employees
2. T4 Summary form

You can download forms from:
T4 slips paper form in http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t4_flat/README.html
T4 Summary paper form in http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t4sum/README.html

Information You Need to File
- Employee’s Name
- Employee’s Address
- Filing Year
- Box 10 – Province
- Box 12 – SIN
- Box 14 – Total Employment Gross income over the year
- Box 16/17 – Total Employee’s CPP / QPP you remitted over the year
- Box 18 – Total Employee’s EI you remitted over the year
- Box 20 – RPP (Pension Plan) contributions
- Box 22 – Total income tax deduction (without EI and CPP) you remitted over the year
- Box 24 – EI insurable earnings
- Box 26 – CPP/QPP earnings
- Box 28 – Exempt (CPP/QPP, EI and PPIP)
- Box 29 – Employment code (If employee is not on fix salary)
- Box 44 – Union Due
- Box 46 – Donations
- Box 50 – RRSP number
- Box 54 – Your BN
- Box 55 – Employee’s PPIP
- Box 56 – PPIP insurable earnings
- Box 40 – Other

See RC4120 Employer’s Guide – Filing the T4 Slips and Summary 2007 on how to fill in each box properly according to your business nature.

File at the last minute by Paper
The fastest way to file, is to either file online or drop off your paper directly to the closest Tax Services Office. You can find your closest tax services office in http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/contact/tso-e.html

Depends on your tax services office, they will collect from the drop-off boxes each hour or each morning, they will also collect your paper during open hours. You can find that information right on their drop-box. They will stamp your envelop as the day you filed as they collect them. Of course you can always go line up if they are opened, you will get your envelop stamp right in front of you. You can image how long the line-up will be on the last day of filing all T-slips.

Example:
If your tax services office’s drop-box said they collect mail from that drop-box every 8:00am Monday to Friday, and the deadline is on Friday, you wants to drop off your paper before 8:00am that Friday.

File at the last minute Electronically
This is the fastest and most convinent way to file. Just press the button at the last minute at your own home and you are done without penalties. BUT, this is applies if you have your web access code.

What is Web Access Code?
If you filed payroll last year, you should receive a pre-filled T4 Summary form from the mail from CRA this year, on the top of the form you should see your Web Access Code. Use that code to file online.

What if you don’t have Web Access Code?
If this is your first year filing your T4, or whatever happened to Canada Post and you never receive your pre-filled form from CRA, you don’t have the Web Access Code. The only way you get your access code is to CRA Help Desk at 1-877-322-7849. But don’t expect you will get your access code right away. After you call them, they will mail you the pre-filled T4 Summary form. If you are filing at the very last minute, you won’t receive your web access code on time to file online.

If you don’t have Web Access Code, I suggest you to drop off your files directly to the closest tax services office.

I have Web Access Code, Now What?

File 1 to 3 slips
You can file your slips on the CRA website directly. Just go to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/t4/t4web/file-e.html to start filing.

Note that although it is an internet service, it is not available 24 hours a day. There are usually a system shut down time for maintainence during the early morning. For Ontario, it is available 6 am to 3 am, and it is available from January 7th 2008 to December 8 2008. You can find the hours of service for your province in http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/hours-e.html

File 1 to 70 slips
You can file your slips with the CRA free software available for download on their website or use your commercial payroll / accounting software. 

If you choose to use the CRA free software, you can go to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/t4/desktop/download-e.html. Download t4_install.exe . Follow the instruction on the website to install the software.

After you install the application, you can start filling in your T4 and T4 Summary. The software is very easy to use and very intuitive, however if you have difficulty using the software, you can find the user instruction on http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/t4/desktop/instructions-e.html.

After you finish filling in all the information, save the file. You will see the file is in .t4 extension. You should always print a paper copy on your T4 slips and T4 summary, these file should be keep in your file for 7 years.

After you print your forms, click on the XML icon to save the file in XML format. You will see the file name is the same as the .t4 file, but now it is .xml. Once you have your .xml file ready, go to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/t4/desktop/file-e.htmland follow their instruction to submit your .xml file. There you go you have filed your T4.

File 1 to 3500 slips
This is the amount of slips you can file using XML format file using commercial software, e.g. Quickbook and Intuit Profile software. After you have save the XML file, go to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/eservices/iref/other/ift/ready-e.html and submit your file.

Over 3500 slips
If you are the employer, congratulation on your accomplishment. If you are an accountant working for the company, I am sure your company have a software (build in-house or large ERP system) to manage producing XML file. CRA prefer such large submission in CD / DVD. Drop off or mail in the CD / DVD to the tax centre.

Reference:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/topics/payroll/returns/t4/menu-e.html

Related Articles:
Late T4 Penalty
T4 Deadline
How to Pay Yourself – Corporation

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  • http://wizebiz.ca/blog/2009/02/02/2008-payroll-t4-deadline/ 2008 Payroll T4 Deadline | Wizebiz.ca

    [...] have time to figure out what to do until the last minutes.  You may want to check out this article Filing T4 at the Last Minutes.  Just spend a little time to read it thru, follow the step by step instruction and [...]

  • Ayesha Samji

    I have received my T4 statement of remunerations paid from my employer. This is my first time submitting a T4 application. Can you please tell me how I am supposed to submit it and if I can do it online?

    Thank you,

    Ayesha Samji
    ayeshasamji@yahoo.com

  • http://www.wizebiz.ca Cecilia Leung

    Hi Ayesha,
    You do not need to submit a T4 application. T4 application is for employer who is paying you. All you need to do now is to file your income tax return by the end of April. You can use software such as QuickTax or file it manually, see article from last year How to file your own tax

  • Mike

    If the company failed to file the T4 for one employee, would it be in trouble with its corporate tax filing?
    Thank you.
    Mike

  • http://www.wizebiz.ca Cecilia Leung

    It depends on what “trouble” means to you. The employee would have trouble filling in an income tax return on time, assuming you will issue a T4 eventually. If the employee never filed any tax return for a while, then the employee probably can expect to get audit at some point in time. For corporate tax filing though, most likely CRA will sent you a letter asking for those documents in relation to the discrepency they found with your salary expenses and the T4 you should have filed. The worst case is that you will need to pay the penalties and interests.