T4 – Statement of Remuneration Paid

If you were paid as an employee during the year, your employer sends you a T4 slip. It sets out what you were paid and what was taken off your pay, box by box.

You do not fill a T4 out. You receive it, check it, and use the boxes when you file.

What it reports

The T4 slip, Statement of Remuneration Paid, reports your employment income for the year and the amounts withheld from it — Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) contributions, employment insurance (EI) premiums, and income tax.

Below those, the "Other information" area at the bottom of the slip has boxes with codes and amounts that relate to employment commissions, taxable allowances and benefits, deductible amounts, fishers' income, and other entries if they apply.

Who sends it

Your employer. If you worked for more than one employer during the year, you receive a slip from each of them.

The boxes that matter

Box 14 – Employment income. Enter this amount on line 10100 of your return.
Box 16 and box 17 – Employee's CPP and QPP contributions. Use the total of the amounts in boxes 16 and 17 of your T4 slips when you complete Schedule 8 or Form RC381, whichever applies, to calculate the amounts to claim on line 30800 and line 22215.
Box 16A and box 17A – Second CPP and QPP contributions. Used the same way, on Schedule 8 or Form RC381, to calculate the amount to claim on line 22215.
Box 18 – Employee's EI premiums. Enter this amount on line 31200.
Box 20 – RPP contributions. Enter this amount on line 20700. It includes past service contributions.
Box 22 – Income tax deducted. Enter this amount on line 43700.
Box 44 – Union dues. Enter this amount on line 21200.
Box 46 – Charitable donations. Enter this amount on line 1 of your Schedule 9, Donations and Gifts. Line 34900 has more.
Box 52 – Pension adjustment. This is generally the value of the benefits you earned in the year under a registered pension plan or a deferred profit-sharing plan. It is not an income and not a deduction: you only enter it on line 20600, and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) uses it to calculate your RRSP/PRPP deduction limit for next year.

Two boxes are working figures rather than amounts you report. Box 24 is the EI insurable earnings your employer used to calculate the premiums shown in box 18. Box 26 is the CPP/QPP pensionable earnings used to calculate the contributions shown in boxes 16, 16A, 17 and 17A.

Boxes you do not report

Some boxes are already counted inside another box, and some are there for information only. Entering them again would count the same money twice.

Board and lodging (box 30), travel in a prescribed zone (box 32), personal use of an employer's automobile or motor vehicle (box 34), interest-free and low-interest loans (box 36), security options benefits (box 38), other taxable allowances and benefits (box 40), and the security options election (box 86) are already included in box 14.
Special work site (box 31) and medical travel assistance (box 33) are not reported on your return.
Box 45 is the employer-offered dental benefits code. For calendar year 2023 and after, your employer must indicate whether you or any of your family members were eligible, on December 31 of that year, to access any dental care insurance or coverage of dental services of any kind that they offered. The code supports the administration of the Canadian Dental Care Plan and is not reported on your return.
Amounts exempt under the Indian Act appear in box 69, box 71 and box 88. They are not reported. Box 71 and box 88 point to Form T90, and those amounts do not go on line 10100 or on lines 13499 to 14300.

A few boxes carry an amount that is reported somewhere other than the employment income line:

Employment commissions (box 42) go on line 10120 and are already included in box 14. The Canadian Armed Forces personnel and police deduction (box 43) goes on line 24400 and is also already included in box 14.
Security options deductions (box 39 and box 41) go on line 24900.
Eligible and non-eligible retiring allowances (box 66 and box 67) are covered at line 13000.
Workers' compensation benefits repaid to the employer (box 77) go on line 22900.
Employee-paid premiums for private health services plans (box 85) are covered at lines 33099 and 33199.
Gross income for fishers (boxes 78, 79 and 80) does not go on line 10100 — see Form T2121. Gross income for placement or employment agency workers (box 81), taxi drivers and drivers of other passenger-carrying vehicles (box 82), and barbers or hairdressers (box 83) does not go on line 10100 either — see Form T2125.

If a slip is late or looks wrong

If you have any questions about the amounts shown on your T4 slip, contact the issuer of the slip — your employer. Only the issuer can change a figure or send you a corrected slip.

The CRA's T4 page for individuals does not set out a date by which a slip has to reach you, so this article does not state one either.

What to keep

Keep the slip. It is the document behind every amount you carry onto your return from it, and behind the tax already withheld in your name.

If you worked for several employers, keep every slip: each one carries its own box 14, its own withholding, and its own share of the totals you enter.

Dossier stores the slip and identifies it as a T4, so it sits with the rest of your year's paper. It does not read the amounts off the slip; the figures you enter still come from the boxes in front of you when you file.

Official CRA sources

Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.