If you employ someone to look after the property, their pay and the employer costs that come with it are rental expenses. On Form T776, they go on line 9060, Salaries, wages, and benefits.
Employing someone brings obligations beyond the wage itself, and this line is where those land too.
What belongs here
- Amounts paid or payable to superintendents, maintenance personnel, and others you employ to take care of your rental property
- Your part of Canada Pension Plan or Quebec Pension Plan contributions, and employment insurance premiums
- Workers' compensation amounts payable on employees' remuneration, and Provincial Parental Insurance Plan (PPIP) premiums — the PPIP is an income replacement plan for residents of Quebec
- Insurance premiums you pay for an employee for sickness, accident, disability, or income insurance
What does not belong here
The value of your own services. You cannot deduct what your own work would have been worth. This is the same rule that applies to repairs you do yourself on line 8960: your labour isn't an expense, however much of it the job took.
If you have an employee
Paying someone to look after a property makes you an employer, and being an employer means payroll deductions — withholding from the employee's pay, remitting it, and issuing a slip. That's a separate obligation from your return, with its own deadlines. Guide T4001, Employer's Guide — Payroll Deductions and Remittances, covers it, and the CRA's payroll pages explain how to remit.
If you're paying a contractor rather than an employee, none of that applies. Which one you have turns on the working relationship rather than on what the invoice calls it, and the CRA has a page on employee-or-self-employed status that walks through the question.
What to keep
Keep detailed records of the rental income you earn and the expenses you incur, supported by invoices, receipts, contracts, and other supporting documents. For this line:
- payroll records showing gross pay and each deduction
- your remittance statements
- premium notices for any employee insurance you pay
- the workers' compensation assessment, where you have one
Don't send them in with your return — keep them in case the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) asks to see them. The CRA may not allow an expense you can't support with a document. Generally, keep your records for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to.
Official CRA sources
Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.