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  Which Province?  

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Filing Your Return

For which province do I file a tax return?

Under normal conditions, a person files a tax return for the province in which they are residing on December 31 of the taxation year.  Sometimes, a person may be considered to be a resident of a province even if they have temporarily relocated to another province.  This could happen if the person was employed in a temporary job, or was a student in a province where they do not normally reside.    A person will be determined to be resident in the province in which they have the most significant residential ties.  For more information on this, see the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Interpretation Bulletin IT221 Determination of an Individual's Residence Status.  This bulletin deals with residency in Canada, as well as province of residence.

See our Tax Rates page for a comparison of total taxes payable by province, and our Marginal Tax Rates page for marginal tax rates for each province/territory.

Tax tip:  If you are moving to a lower tax rate province, do it before December 31st.  If you are moving to a higher tax rate province, wait till after December 31st.

 

What if I live in one province or territory, and work in another, or have paid taxes in two or more provinces?

When it comes time to file your income tax, it doesn't matter if you live in one province or territory and are employed and pay taxes in another.  You file your income tax for the province or territory in which you reside on December 31 of the tax year.  You will simply add up all of your Canadian T4s, and enter the information on your tax return.  If you have employment income and deductions from Québec, but reside in another province, you will include your Québec provincial income tax on line 437 of your tax return, as part of total income tax deducted.  Any QPP contributions that you paid should be treated on your tax return as if you contributed them to CPP.

Because Québec residents must file separate federal and provincial tax returns, there is one more step for Québec residents who paid tax in another province.  If income tax was paid to another province or territory, you may request a tax transfer to the province of Québec to offset your Québec provincial taxes payable.  You may transfer up to 45% of the tax shown on information slips from payers outside of Québec.  This is done by entering the desired transfer amount on line 438 of the federal tax return and line 454 of the Québec tax return.

The above information is available in the CRA General Income Tax and Benefit Guide.

If you reside in Canada outside Québec, but you carried on a business or practised a profession in Québec, you may have to file a Québec tax return.  See the Québec Revenue Ministry article "Are you required to file an income tax return?", which lists the situations in which a Québec tax return must be filed.

Revised: July 19, 2010

 

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