New CRA T4 Reporting Requirement for Tax Year 2020

IMPORTANT: Please read this entire communication before attempting to produce 2020 T4 slips. 

Dear ESILaw Payroll users,

For the 2020 tax year, employers will need to comply with additional T4 reporting requirements to help the CRA validate payments made under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB).

All employers must report all employment income and retroactive payments made to employees in 2020 — using information codes corresponding to four defined periods. These codes and amounts are included at the bottom of the T4 (Other Information Area).

Code 57: Employment income – March 15 to May 9
Code 58: Employment income – May 10 to July 4
Code 59: Employment income – July 5 to August 29
Code 60: Employment income – August 30 to September 26

To learn more about the CRA requirements, click here

To meet these requirements, a Payroll Hotfix is available for downloading / installing through your current Payroll system. Use the “Check for updates” feature in Payroll to update to the latest version. This hotfix will only be available for download until the end of December. Please download at your earliest convenience. 

*** Note that this hotfix will NOT include any updates to any of the CRA values such as TD1, TD2, and CPP for the 2021 payroll tax seasons.

If you need additional support, please contact the help desk.

Thank you, 

The ESILAW Team