Find out if you need to make payroll deductions

If you are you a trustee, an employer, or a payer of other amounts related to employment, you have to register for a payroll account and follow the payroll requirements.

• How to open a payroll account
• Pay (remit) source deductions

Seasonal or no employees

You must still tell us if you have no source deductions to remit for a month or quarter if you usually remit payroll.

• Report a nil remittance

Trustees

A trustee includes a liquidator, a receiver, a receiver-manager, a trustee in bankruptcy, an assignee, an executor, an administrator, a sequestrator, or any other person who performs a function similar to the one a trustee performs.

A trustee does both of the following:

• authorizes a payment or causes a payment to be made for another person
• administers, manages, distributes, winds up, controls, or otherwise deals with another person’s property, business, estate, or income

Note 

The trustee is jointly and severally, or solidarily, liable for deducting and remitting the income tax, Canada Pension Plan contributions, and employment insurance premiums for all payments the trustee makes.

Employers

We generally consider you to be an employer if you:

• pay salaries, wages (including advances), bonuses, vacation pay, or tips to your employees
• provide certain taxable benefits to your employees (for example, an automobile or allowances)

An individual is an employee if the worker and the payer have an employer-employee relationship. This relationship is referred to as employment under a contract of service.

Although the intent of a written contract might mean that an individual is self-employed (and therefore working under a contract for services), we cannot consider the individual as self-employed if there is evidence of an employer-employee relationship.

If you or a person working for you is not sure of the worker’s employment status, either one of you can request a ruling to determine the status. For more information, go to How to get a CPP/EI ruling.

For more information on employment status, see Guide RC4110, Employee or Self-Employed?

Forms and publications for employers

• Guide RC4110, Employee or Self-Employed?
• Form CPT1, Request for a CPP/EI Ruling – Employee or Self-Employed?

Payers of other amounts related to employment

A payer of other amounts can be an employer, a trustee, an estate executor, a liquidator, an administrator, or a corporate director who pays other types of income related to an employment. This income can include:

• pension or superannuation
• lump-sum payments
• self-employed commissions
• annuities
• retiring allowances
• patronage allowances
• accumulated income payments (AIPs)
• educational assistance payments (EAPs)
• fees or other amounts for services
• other income such as:
  • research grants
  • payments from a Registered disability savings plan (RDSP)
  • wage-loss replacement plan payments if you were not required to withhold Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions and employment insurance (EI) premiums
  • death benefits
  • certain benefits paid to:
    • partnerships
    • shareholders

To see if you should deduct CPP, EI or tax from these payments, see the Special payments chart.

If you determine that you are a payer, you have to fill out the T4A slip, Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income, if you made any of the payments listed above (with the exception of retiring allowances) and one of the following applies:

• the total of all payments in the calendar year was more than $500
• you deducted tax from any payment

Source: CRA