Payroll is an important task that every company with employees must go through, and paying employees correctly and on time is a task that every business owner must complete.

The following are some basic knowledge regarding payroll for your reference.

How to make a 0-amount declaration

There's two ways to claim:

According to your company's filing frequency, mail a 0-amount payroll tax return before the deadline of each period (the deadline for monthly filing is usually the 15th of the following month).

Pay attention to the company name, address, salary account ID, and the period to which the salary belongs.

Sample form from the Quebec Revenue Service: (The areas in the red box need to be filled in according to the actual situation, and the amount can be filled in with 0)       

Federal Tax Service sample form: (The areas in the red box need to be filled in according to the actual situation, and the amount can be filled in with 0)

2. You can also choose to log in to your federal tax office CRA and Quebec tax office MRQ to make a zero return.

Federal Tax Agency website: CRA sign-in services - Canada.ca

Revenu Québec website: Home | Revenu Québec (revenuquebec.ca)

About the periodicity of payroll payment
Is it paid every two weeks or once a month? In Quebec, there is a rule that employees cannot receive their payroll more than 14 days apart. Other provinces do not have this rule, but in most of Canada, payroll is paid every two weeks. Once this periodicity is decided at the beginning of the year, it cannot be easily changed, otherwise taxes will be deducted and messed up. The hourly rate is determined by the owner, but the owner should be reminded not to pay less than the minimum wage in the province. Just pay the fixed amount every time you pay the salary.

About holiday and its salary calculation
When we say holiday, we mean national holidays, such as Canada Day on July 1, and Quebec's provincial holiday on June 24. Those holidays are easy to understand, that is, if that day is a working day, then, the employee has taken the legal holiday, the boss also has to pay that in the salary. Many customers have a lot of questions on this issue. Here we summarize a few of the more common problems.

1. How to calculate, we use the average of the working hours of the statutory holiday for the first 20 days or 60 days to calculate the time of the statutory holiday. 20 days is applicable to workers with relatively stable working hours, 60 days is applicable to workers with relatively unstable working hours.
2. When calculating, if the employee's vacation pay, sick pay, etc. in the first 20 days should be counted? This depends on the specific situation, for example, if the employee pays a lot of vacation pay while he/she is working normally, then this amount will not be accepted. However, if the employee is actually on leave and receives vacation pay, the amount is included in the calculation.
3. If the employee is a new employee and has no prior pay history, should I pay holiday pay? No, you may not.
4. What if the employee is working on the day of the holiday? If the employee works on that day, he/she will be credited with normal hours and the holiday will be calculated as normal.

About Vacation pay
Vacation is a benefit that accrues after the employee joins the company at the rate of Gross pay*4%. It is used to pay employees when they are on vacation and do not generate hours.
Common knowledge about Vacation is as follows.

1. Does Vacation have to be accrued? Yes, accrual is mandatory.
2. What is the rate of Vacation accrual? The starting Rate is 4% and 6% over three years. The information is updated according to the CNESST website.
3. Is 4% just two weeks? 4% * all year Gross pay = two weeks' salary.
4. All year is very important here, if the employee's salary is less than one year, in fact, it is not accumulated 4%, so we hope that the owners use Rate to do the description when hiring employees, and it is better not to use week to measure.

About Overtime
Overtime is paid at 1.5 times the salary. In our system, the operator only needs to provide the time of overtime, and the system is automatically calculating the amount.

About Tips
Tips In Quebec, there are two cases, one, the owner decides the tip allocation, there is a special hourly rate for tipped employees. Payroll operators need to enter the amount of tips in the system, tips are added to the Gross pay and tax is deducted. II. Other Tips, which is specific to Quebec, simply means that the employee has received the tips at work, but the total amount has to be reported and tax deducted.
If the owner can allocate tips, Quebec's rules are that the amount of tips allocated cannot be less than 8% of the dine-in Sales.
About payroll tax (DAS)
Payroll tax consists of two parts, one is the tax deducted from the employee's salary (EI, QPP, QPIP, TAX, TAX(QC)) and the other is the employer's portion (EI, QPP, QPIP, CNESST, QHSF).
Then, the employee deduction part belongs to the employer to help the employee withholding contributions. The employer's portion is the part that the employee has to bear.
Payroll tax is paid before the 15th of each month for the last cycle of wages, not late, there will be a penalty for late payment. The amount and the report should be submitted to the tax office together.
Quebec companies have to pay the federal tax office (CRA) and the Quebec tax office (MRQ), while Ontario companies only pay the federal tax office.
There are monthly, quarterly and annual payroll tax cycles, which are determined by the IRS.

About CNESST
CNESST is the workers' compensation insurance and labour department of Quebec. If a company employs employees other than the manager, CNESST will be opened within 60 days of the first payroll, so that CNESST will set the RATE according to your company's industry, and the company will pay this insurance at the Gross pay*CNESST Rate of each cycle. The higher the industry risk, the higher the CNESST RATE.
CNESST is mandatory in Quebec, unless your company has only managers, as long as your company employs employees other than managers, you have to open CNSEET, and this manager is not the owner's decision, but the company opened the REQ registered which are managers, so if your employee is not on the list of this REQ, and he is paid, your company has to open CNESST. CNESST.
CNESST annual report is required by March 15 every year, no late report, late report will have a penalty.
If you have any questions or different understanding, please contact our payroll specialist.

Author: Wang, Ying