Business -> Payroll taxes

Calculating payroll tax deductions and automobile taxable benefits.

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has a Payroll Deductions Online Calculator which is free of charge.

CRA also provides software, called Tables on Diskette, which you can download from their web site.  This software calculates deductions for federal and provincial tax, CPP and EI, for all provinces.  It also calculates the appropriate automobile taxable benefit amount to be included in an employee's income when the employee utilizes a vehicle leased or owned by the employer.

Because payroll deduction rates often change semi-annually, if you use the downloaded software you should get on the CRA electronic mailing list service for payroll deductions, so you can be notified when new rates are available, or if there is a change in the software.

If you prefer to calculate deductions manually, you can get instructions and the payroll deduction tables from the CRA web page on Calculating deductions.

See also our Calculators page for links to online Tax and RRSP Savings Calculators, which are available for all provinces and territories.  Input your annual income from different sources.  Your annual federal & provincial/territorial taxes, CPP and EI premiums will be calculated for you.  Input an RRSP deduction amount to see how much tax can be saved.  The tax calculators are a very useful tax planning tool.  They work for both the current and previous tax years.

See also the CRA publication T4001 Employers' Guide, Payroll Deductions and Remittances.