T4 Slip : Hold Your Employer Accountable if yours is delayed/not received - CRA fine

[momof3heathens]

Holy crud Matt.

Hope you get things worked out.

[Stoopid_monkey]

Hello to all!

I understand this is an old thread but I am currently having issues with my place of work.

It is now April 1st and according to my CRA account there is STILL no processing or records of my T4 being filed by the owner of the local restaurant I work at.

My question here is, how do I ensure that he is going to deal with the penalties involved with each day that he has delayed to file my, as well as the 7-8 other employees T4s/paperwork.

Is this something CRA deals with directly or does an employee have to actually call and complain to CRA for them to penalize this wrongdoing?

Thank you for your help!

[Durham Couponer]

Hello to all!

I understand this is an old thread but I am currently having issues with my place of work.

It is now April 1st and according to my CRA account there is STILL no processing or records of my T4 being filed by the owner of the local restaurant I work at.

My question here is, how do I ensure that he is going to deal with the penalties involved with each day that he has delayed to file my, as well as the 7-8 other employees T4s/paperwork.

Is this something CRA deals with directly or does an employee have to actually call and complain to CRA for them to penalize this wrongdoing?

Thank you for your help!

First things first- have you asked the owner directly for your t4 yet? If he doesn't have it ready for you instantly, then you should be calling the cra asap yourself. Keep your pay stubs and you can still file your taxes on time, at least.

[Stoopid_monkey]

Around the last week of February I began inquiring about our T4s.

I typically work Thursday-Sunday so I made it a point on most Fridays to ask him (before the rush) what is up and when I/we should be expecting to get our T4s. For the first couple weeks he would respond saying, 'oh ya I sent it all in and it should be here in the next week or so.' This is the usual response I've received from other employers in the past when inquiring about T4 slips so I thought it was just a delay in the processing or something because I didn't do much research on the subject as this has really never been an issue for me.

About half way through March, one night while myself and one of the cooks were closing up, after he had already told us he was would be taking for the night as per-usual, I heard him mumble (after being about three 12oz glasses of wine deep and then pouring himself a fourth) that he actually should stay to get the paperwork done. This is when I began to get concerned and started wondering what he was talking about but I just assumed that it was not something that had to do with myself or the other employees because for 2-3 weeks at this point he had been saying that he should be receiving our T4 slips.... Well for the 20 minutes he said there all he did was snapchat.

He half-mentioned several days ago that, 'this paperwork stuff is too much for him' and how, 'I needed to hire a bookie/accountant to help me out with it,' even though he never directly said that the paperwork he is discussing relates to the delay in our T4s.

Now it's April 1st...... I've been asking for 4-5 weeks about what is going on and I don't know what to do. I apparently have to wait until Monday to talk to CRA but is this something I have to actually report (even though I do plan on doing it) or does CRA penalize employers on their own?

Basically I want to know for myself if employees HAVE to to file a claim through CRA for an employer to be penalized for their own neglect and wrongdoing or is it automatically done by CRA. Now that this has affected me I want to be able to discuss/help others with this situation and how to deal with it.

[Durham Couponer]

This might help:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc...filing_failure

[Ciel]

@Stoopid_monkey -make sure you file your income tax return based on all the paycheques you received in 2016 and include a note with return with the dates in 2017 that you had asked your employer for your T4 slip. You still are obligated to report your income and can file an adjustment form later if you under/overreport something should your T4 slip miraculously arrive.
If you did not receive pay slips with your cheques, how did you verify your pay/source deductions against your own record of hours worked each week? Do keep a paper planner for recording your work hours, net of lunch or meal breaks.
If your boss owner filed (mailed or e-filed) a payroll record for 2016 to the CRA, then CRA would know what the 2016 amounts are and will compare employee income amounts against that record. If owner did not submit that record, well, the CRA will do what it has to do.

You mention you are in the hospitality industy-it's known for owners/managers that may not follow proper tip/pay protocols or keeping adequate business records. Based on what you posted (the information disclosed by owner while drinking and comments heard), I assume there is a strong likelihood your boss owner may not have kept up with source deduction payments to CRA and maybe that is why he's worrying about paperwork. I would not be surprised if the money from payroll source deductions was used to pay other business expenses-that can happen.

[brunt]

As far as your missing T4 slips are concerned, hopefully you kept your payslips and have the totals from there. You also have an obligation to file your taxes on time with your best effort at having the correct figures. The fact that you did not receive a slip is no excuse as far as CRA is concerned.

So start filling out your taxes with the numbers from your last 2016 payslip including total income and tax withheld. Hold off until the filing deadline or until you receive the T4 and file (after correcting if you receive the T4 and your numbers were wrong). If you receive a T4 after filing and your numbers were wrong, then you will have to file an amendment.

Of course, you are only held to the end of the month deadline if you owe taxes. If you are getting a refund, then you can file later. But then that may delay other benefit payments, so you will have the judge that yourself.

It's always good to understand taxes when it comes to T4 slips.

I worked for a smallish Canadian arm of a very large US company, and when I left, I only then discovered that they had RRSP contributions as part of my overall benefits package that I had never received. So with my last paycheque, I received a lump sum payment for this.

Fast forward to tax time, and I received the T4. Thing was, they included the RRSP contribution as part of the income, which they should not since you don't directly get a deduction for RRSP contributions this way, they just should not be part of the income. It took me a while to get a definitive answer on this, and actually had to scan a number of paragraphs from university-level taxation books to convince myself that this was correct. Even CRA gave mixed answers on this. But the textbooks were clearly on my side.

Had I left it as it was, I was going to pay about 50% tax on the contribution that they made for me, and then 50% tax on the entire amount when I took it out (over 50% now, thankyouverymuch Premier Wynne). This means that I would receive roughly 0% of the money, if not have lost money by receiving money.

So I tried contacting the payroll guy only to discover that he had left the company. The payroll had been transferred to a US office where I spoke with a really nice woman there who admitted to having only limited knowledge with regards to Canadian taxes. Unbelievably, she actually seriously considered my argument (I half expected to be blown off), and she checked with whomever she checked, and came back to me a couple of weeks later stating that I was indeed correct.

The payroll guy had been doing this incorrectly for years for everyone in the company. They had to reissue T4 slips not only for that year, but for about a decade before that. There were literally millions of dollars in overpaid taxes due to this. And not one person had noticed. I made for some very happy people.

Bottom line here is that nobody cares about your money more than you. Thus you are better off to arm yourself and make sure that things are done correctly.

[tjthemanto]

By February end 2018 most employers should hand out your T4 slips.

[NVREDY]

I only just received mine today. Post date on envelop was Mar 14th do they were way late and that was a week after I emailed them to find out where it was. They have yet to respond. On top of that it is incorrect do mow I have asked for an amended one. If They don't respond then I will lodge a gormal complaint with the CRA. Most companies are hoping that the employees don't know the regulations

[tjthemanto]

That time of the year is almost here in a couple of months.

[Ciel]

This is the month to update your T1 form with your employer if any spousal or dependant changes have occurred since the last time you completed a form. You can opt to not claim a personal exemption amount so you will have more income tax deducted at source from your pay (and thus have a lower likelihood of a surprise taxes owing scenario when you file for 2019 next year unless there's an unusual income stream (T4 or T5 slip)that did not take enough income tax off at source).
If you work more than one part-time or full-time job, make sure you only claim the personal exemption amount at one job (the one with most hours or pay) on the TD1 form and not others, or you may find yourself owing next year for tax year 2019 (because all of your employers thought you were claiming the personal exemptions at each job and CRA only gives you ONE personal exemption as a non-refundable tax credit).

[Ciel]

Employers ought to be mailing out the T4 slips this week or telling employees where to collect or to print their copies. If you don't know, ask someone doing the payroll processing.
Otherwise you'll need to rely on your usual weekly, biweekly or monthly pay records to file employment income on your tax return while you hound your employer (keep track of the dates/times you request information in case you don't end up with a slip and you want CRA to know about it by April 30).

[dyalect]

Employers should be sending them out well before end of February.
RRSP deadline is March 1st. Nice to know if you need to add some RRSPs prior to that deadline.
Lazy employers.

[Ciel]

I understand from someone waiting on a RESP contribution slip that it can be sent out mid-March. Bit of a wait for parents!

[tjthemanto]

They should also force them to upload the T4 slip on CRA - My Account by that date.

As lot of tax software have auto fill features now, when you file taxes. They pull the T4 and other slips data directlyfrom CRA, so no errors while manually entering them - no Typos etc.

I got a T5 slip on Feb 20. My taxes are all done, I even got a refund and NOA. But that T5 slip is yet to be uploaded online! It's March 10 now!

So when I filed my taxes I could not even use the Auto Fill feature on Turbo Tax, I had to manually enter most things in the software.