If you received Canada Pension Plan benefits during the year — a retirement pension, a disability benefit, a survivor or child benefit — a T4A(P) slip sets out what was paid and what tax was deducted.
You do not prepare it. You receive it and use the boxes when you file.
What it reports
The T4A(P), Statement of Canada Pension Plan Benefits, reports the taxable Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits paid to you in the year, broken down by the kind of benefit, plus two counts of months and the income tax deducted.
Who sends it
Service Canada, which administers the Canada Pension Plan. With Service Canada's Tax information slips online service, you can access your T4A(P) slip earlier, and file your income tax return sooner.
The box that carries the total
Box 20 – Taxable CPP benefits. Enter this amount on line 11400 of your return. Box 20 includes any benefits shown in boxes 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. Do not add the amounts from those boxes to your income again. It also includes any recovery of CPP overpayments or payments for arrears.
That last sentence is the one to hold on to. The breakdown boxes are there so you can see what the total is made of, not so you can add them up.
The breakdown boxes
- Box 14 – Retirement benefit. Already included in box 20.
- Box 15 – Survivor benefit. Already included in box 20.
- Box 16 – Disability benefit. Enter this amount on line 11410 of your return. It is already included in box 20, so do not add it to your income again — line 11410 identifies it, it does not tax it a second time.
- Box 17 – Child benefit. Already included in box 20.
- Box 18 – Death benefit. Already included in box 20. Do not report this amount if you are filing for a deceased person. If you received it and you are a beneficiary of the deceased person's estate, report the amount on line 13000 of your own return, unless a T3, Trust Income Tax and Information Return, is being filed for the estate.
- Box 19 – Post-retirement benefit. Already included in box 20.
The boxes that are not amounts
- Box 13 – Onset or effective date. For a disability benefit, the date Service Canada determined that you were disabled for CPP purposes. For a retirement benefit, the date the benefit became payable.
- Box 21 – Number of months, disability. Months excluded from your CPP contributory period because of disability.
- Box 22 – Income tax deducted. Enter this amount on line 43700.
- Box 23 – Number of months, retirement. The number of months you received CPP retirement benefits.
If you are a registered Indian, or entitled to be registered as an Indian under the Indian Act, your personal property, including income, is exempt from tax when it is situated on a reserve. Form T90 covers that.
If a slip is late or looks wrong
Service Canada issues the slip, so Service Canada is who to ask about it. The Tax information slips online service is the fastest way to get at it.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) page this article is written from does not state a date by which the slip has to reach you, so this article does not state one either.
What to keep
Keep the slip. It supports the benefit amount on line 11400, the disability benefit identified on line 11410, and the tax already withheld in your name.
If you are filing for someone who died during the year, keep the slip with the estate's records: box 18 is reported differently depending on whose return it lands on.
Dossier stores the slip and identifies it as a T4A(P), so it is with the rest of your year's paper. It does not read the amounts off it; the figures come from the boxes in front of you when you file.
Official CRA sources
Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.