Canadian Payroll Reporter

News Published 12 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Subscription rate: $179 per year Customer Service Tel: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5106 E-mail: carswell.customerrelations @thomsonreuters.com Website: www.carswell.com One Corporate Plaz 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1T 3V4 Director, Carswell Media Karen Lorimer Publisher John Hobel Associate Publisher/Managing Editor Todd Humber Editor Sheila Brawn sbrawn@rogers.com Lead Editor Sarah Dobson Assistant Editor Mallory Hendry (on leave) Assistant Editor Anastasiya Jogal Marketing Manager Mohammad Ali mm.ali@thomsonreuters.com (416) 609-5866 Circulation Co-ordinator Keith Fulford keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com (416) 649-9585 Payroll Reporter Can R adian a www.payroll-reporter.com ©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-7798-2810-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher (Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business). Return Mail Registration # 1522825 | Return Postage Guaranteed Paid News Revenue Toronto Canadian Payroll Reporter is part of the Canadian HR Reporter group of publications: • Canadian HR Reporter — www.hrreporter.com • Canadian Occupational Safety magazine — www.cos-mag.com • Canadian Payroll Reporter — www.payroll-reporter.com • Canadian Employment Law Today — www.employmentlawtoday.com • Canadian Labour Reporter — www.labour-reporter.com See carswell.com for information of the arrears have been paid off." Communicating with the program office if there are em- ployment changes is another im- portant element of compliance. Maintenance enforcement laws across Canada require employ- ers to notify the maintenance en- forcement program office within a specified time (often 10 days) if an employee's employment is terminated. Remembering to restart de- ductions if a terminated em- ployee is rehired can also be an issue for some employers, says Marshall. In Albert, support de- duction notices can last for 12 years, so payroll departments need to find out if an old order is still valid. "If an employee leaves their employment and later returns, the employer should start remit- ting again, unless the support deduction notice was terminat- ed by MEP in the interim," she adds. One challenge payroll can face is having to comply with more than one garnishment order for the same employee at the same time, says Roots. "Where there are two for maintenance or two for child support, what we recommend is just do the calculation and send us the full amount and we will divide it between the families," she says. "If it's a garnishment from an- other source, and the most com- mon one is Revenue Canada, our advice to the employer is to just phone us. We will deal with Rev- enue Canada and we will work it out with them. To their credit, Revenue Canada is usually very willing to work with us and they are usually more willing to talk to us than to the employer," she adds. The process of complying with support deduction orders can be even more challenging for em- ployers with workplaces in more than one province since each ju- risdiction has its own rules. Beresford says maintenance enforcement programs recog- nize this and try to standardize processes where possible. "Each province, each territory has its own legislative frame- work, but we have really tried to work together, I wouldn't say to make our legislation identical, but to be relatively harmonized in how we do things," he says. "We have monthly teleconfer- ences of the programs and we have an annual meeting. One of the things that we want to do is remove the gaps that exist between us and to make things work a little bit more seamlessly. About one case in five involves a parent living in one province or territory and a parent in a differ- ent province or territory. Cana- dians are very mobile so we re- ally have to work together if we are going to be effective on this." The best way to avoid errors with any support deduction no- tice is to call the applicable main- tenance enforcement office with any questions or concerns, says Marshall. "We have a dedicated phone queue for employers so we can provide answers quickly." Beresford echoes this. "Five minutes on the phone can save untold difficulties down the road in getting these right. "That will ensure that they are very accurately following the terms of the notice and then they are in the clear and the payor is in the clear because ultimately if the deduction isn't done in a timely way or a proper way, it's not good for the company, it's not good for the program and it's certainly not good for the payor," he adds. April 2015 | CPR cent for the use of the automo- bile.'" Some employers provide printed logbooks to employees to help them keep better records, but Plett thinks an even better idea would be to go digital. "People will keep a Moleskine planner or whatever and they will track what days they used it or how many kilometres they've driven and they'll shove this in the glove compartment (and for- get it) and, at the end of the year, the records they keep aren't actu- ally that good," he says. "The real key is having an app or something on your phone where you can actually keep track of these things. A lot of people are still using pen and paper when something digital and something more permanent would be a bet- ter solution." Whichever recording method an employer chooses, the most important thing is to make sure that employees understand from the beginning why they need to use it and that they do use it. "Tracking it on a regular ba- sis, as with any taxable benefit, is really the thing to do because a year later it's easy to forget about a thing and then it suddenly be- comes a nightmare," says Plett. "If you are proactive about it and, come December, you realize that the taxable benefit was actu- ally greater than what you calcu- lated it beforehand, you can make that adjustment (in the same calendar year) and it won't really have any impact in the long run," he adds. Joncas notes that remind- ers never hurt. "Come Octo- ber, November, when payroll is dealing with the end of the year, send out a memo to your employees," she says. "Remind them that if they are claiming other than the basic ex- emption, they need to come in and complete a new TD1 form. If they have moved during the year, let payroll know your new ad- dress so that your T4 will make it to the right destination and, at the same time, remind them that if you have been provided with a ve- hicle to submit your logbook on such and such a date," she adds. "Make it part of your year-end reminder because we need to send out reminders too." from FAMILY on page 3 Logbooks, reminders help with compliance from VARIABLES on page 6 Jurisdictions trying to standardize processes

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