I received a copy by email of my T4 from an employer which I only was able to work a week for.
One thing that puzzles me is I can not pull that T4 from my CRA account, even though I have a copy in my hand from the employer. The SIN is correct, though my last name is mis-pelt by a missing character. I have heard a rumor that when there is an issue with a name, the T4 is still there in the database, but the individual can not see it in the CRA account because of privacy issues?
Maybe I am overly paranoid, I just don’t want any complications with the CRA.
One final question I have is, why is there a quotation " character in box 26?
I wouldn’t worry.
CRA doesn’t necessarily have all T4’s uploaded. I have several teacher clients - it appears the School District’s T4’s haven’t been uploaded.
The " is probably just a mistype by the employer.
Stay calm.
I guess part of the worry is I’ve read somewhere that employers face a $15 a day penalty for T4s that are not registered (and it grows from there), and knowing the CRA it wouldn’t surprise me if they try to turn something into a 400K penalty against someone for something like this.
Hopefully I’m just still paranoid. Maybe I should contact the employer to give them a head’s up to fix a typo, etc. but if they have to re-submit this I wonder if that penalizes them as well.
The only penalty I have ever seen for failing to file T4s is a flat $100. if it is a mispelt name, the employer will receive a notice saying they can’t match the name. So like @neal said, stay calm. We all hate problems with CRA but doubt very much that this will we anything to worry about.
I agree with the comments above. Stay cool. You are not at fault. The impact to you may be small. The problem may correct itself during the next two to four months if or when your short term employer’s payroll tax return has been assessed by CRA and your T4 slip has been loaded into your CRA My Account.
You may choose to wait, or, you may choose to be proactive.
I you wish to be proactive to minimize worry and stress as far as your current paper copy of you T4 is concerned, I suggest the following steps:
Report your T4 income per your paper copy.
Send your prior employer a friendly letter requesting that your paper copy T4 be corrected and a new T4 slip be sent to you.
If no action within a few weeks, then send a registered letter to your employer asking for the corrections to your T4. CRA requires proof of delivery of three written letters and no less than three months from the first provable delivery of request date before Employer Services will intervene and take action in the form of a demand to correct, demand to file, or payroll audit.
Send one copy of this employer letter to CRA T1 Specialty Services via My Account or send via registered mail to your local Tax Centre’s Personal Tax T1 address attention T1 Specialty Services. This would protect you from penalties in the event of T1 matching errors. State the errors and the fact that your T4 slip has not been loaded in your “CRA My Account”.
Keep checking your My Account for the T4 slip to be processed with the corrections.
Generally T4 slips that are filed late by the employer or paper filed even if on time can take up to three or four months or longer to be processed as part of their Payroll Filing called the T4Sum aka T4 Summary Return. Unusual characters such as the quotation sign indicates that they T4 slip that you received was prepared manually using a PDF form filler. It is unlikely that a T4 slip preparation software application was used. Clearly this slip was not part of a T4 Sum filing with CRA because the audit sequence would not have accepted this slip. My guess is that your T4 slip may have been either paper filed but not processed by CRA or may not have been filed by CRA. The maximum penalty to the employer for late filing is $100 per year. Additional penalties and interest may apply if CRA payroll liabilities were remitted late or were not remitted at all.
If, after a minimum of three months and three registered letters, your employer has not sent you a corrected T4 Slip, or, if you can not find a corrected T4 slip in your CRA My Account, slips on file, then send a letter to CRA Payroll Services, at your local Tax Centre’s Business accounts’ address, requesting their assistance in this matter. Attach a summary, timeline, copies of your letters to your employer, and proof of delivery. I would wait a minimum of three months from your employers signed receipt of you first letter. Keep your records on hand until a correct T4 Slip can be found in your CRA My Account. This will state T4 slip if it is the first time assessed, or, AMENDED T4 slip if it is the second time assessed.
Since this is worrying you and if you have the time to follow through, then I would take action. You will feel empowered knowing that you done everything that you could to secure your tax position and avoid the possibility of needless confusion or fear in the future.
Your risks if you don’t take any action could be one of the following:
No issue. Errors were corrected at the time of T4 filing.
Errors. T1 matching error if a late filed slip is different from the amounts that you reported. In this case you would need to do all of the above if the T1 matching error triggered a CRA proof of income audit request.
No record of T4 slip. T4 slip never filed. Then any taxes withheld at source may not be credited to your tax return. This may also impact your EI and CPP as well. However these amounts would likely be small or negligible.
Who knows. Your employer may be unaware of the errors or may have already corrected them… Maybe a simple, friendly phone call could clear things up or start the ball rolling to a correction. It rarely hurts to ask.
This might be a slightly different situation. One of the clients that I do T4s for, for about half of the employees, listed their legal names and preferred names which are not legal names. For T4 purposes, I used their preferred names, and It’s been years, I have never anything back from CRA about the names not matching
By the way, I finished now mentioning the couple details on my T4 to my employer, so they will at least be aware of it. I just thought I’d attach a screen-shot showing the " character in box 26. I had been wondering if maybe TurboTax did that to signify something. I guess not, haha. I tried to even input it in my own tax-software just to see if it would be allowed, but no go. I guess it was just a silly typo (but could default the CRA into thinking that box is null).
I think we are ok for now… I’ve done everything I can for now. Onto other things next!
