Contents:

Welcome
Upcoming Events
What's New
GrandMaster Updates
WEBSITE UPDATE!

NOTE: This archive references other sites on the World Wide Web. From time to time, an article's link may be moved or deleted from the host site. If you encounter an out-of-date link, please e-mail the thepayrollnews@canpay.com.

Welcome!

April 2003 - Welcome to the latest edition of The Payroll News. As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and associates who are interested in keeping up with the latest changes in the Payroll industry. Or better yet, subscribe them for free using the Tell Someone About Us link.

-- Click Here for more news about the New GrandMaster! --

Upcoming Events

Listed here are recent changes in legislation on Federal and Provincial levels that may impact your payroll calculations. Please view the following list for changes that affect your region.

FEDERAL:

March 5, 2003 - CCRA interest rates for the second calendar quarter - The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) today announced the prescribed interest rates that will apply to amounts owed to the CCRA, and to amounts the CCRA owes to individuals and corporations. These rates are calculated quarterly in accordance with applicable legislation and will be in effect from April 1, 2003 to June 30, 2003. (Full Story - 159 Words)

March 19, 2003 - Notice of Ways and Means Motion Introduced for Budget 2003 Initiatives - A detailed Notice of Ways and Means Motion has been tabled to implement certain provisions of Budget 2003. The Notice includes measures to expand employment insurance benefits to provide a six-week compassionate care benefit for individuals to care for gravely ill family members and to promote small business and entrepreneurship, including through an increase in the small business deduction limit. (Full Story - 444 Words)

March 21, 2003 - Changes to EI Regulations to introduce expiry dates on 900-series Social Insurance Numbers - Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) announced today changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) Regulations to introduce expiry dates on all 900-series Social Insurance Numbers (SINs). Starting March 30, 2003, these SINs will be valid until the end of the person's authorized stay in Canada to a maximum of five years. (Full Story - 587 Words)

March 3, 2003 - Worker well-being focus of business study - The SSHRC is investing $2.5 million in a major international project to help businesses respond better to worker needs in the face of increasing global competition. "Recent trends in globalization suggest companies favour employer efficiency over employee well-being," said SSHRC president Marc Renaud. (Full Story - 430 Words)

Alberta:

March 5, 2003 - Work Safe Alberta says "Choose Safe not Sorry" - A new advertising and awareness campaign is challenging industry, safety associations, labour and government to work together to reduce workplace incidents by 40% by 2004. As part of the initiative for Work Safe Alberta, the government has hired additional safety officers and has already revised legislation. The Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Amendment Act includes increased fines, assigning more constructive penalties such as safety and education programs, and the possibility of administrative fines. (Full Story - 875 Words)

March 11, 2003 - Changes to Alberta's Labour Relations Code - Changes to Alberta's Labour Relations Code are designed to streamline bargaining in the health care sector for employers, employees, and unions, ensure all workers are treated fairly and consistently, and, ultimately, result in better health services for Albertans. (Full Story - 939 Words)

March 26, 2003 - Consolidating regulations simplifies how safety rules apply in Alberta workplaces - The newly updated Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Regulation replaces the administrative and policy provisions of 11 existing regulations. The administrative requirements, which include matters such as application for permits and certificates, posting of orders and notices, and availability of documents, will come into effect on Monday, March 31, 2003. These initiatives are part of government's commitment to Work Safe Alberta, an initiative that is designed to reduce workplace injuries by 40% by the end of 2004. (Full Story - 292 Words)

March 14, 2003 - Employment Standards in the Home Care and Residential Care Industry Permits to be replaced by Regulation - Alberta Human Resources and Employment is seeking input on proposed amendments to the Employment Standards Regulation for care workers in home care and residential care. The goal of ths project is to reduce administrative requirements and to bring greater transparency and consistency to the minimum employment standards in these two important areas of public service. (Full Story - 900+ Words)

New Brunswick:

March 31, 2003 - WHSCC 2002 Annual Report Shows Promising Trends, Despite Loss - The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission's bottom line suffered in 2002 due to the continued instability of world markets, increased health care costs, and a changing provincial environment. Robert Scott, Chairperson of the Board of Directors also said "This change had the positive effect of decreasing the number of accidents, which is a promising trend. However it also had the negative effect of reducing the amount of premiums paid to the WHSCC.". (Full Story - 500 Words)

Newfoundland and Labrador:

March 13, 2003 - Minister announces deferral of implementation of overtime regulations - Percy Barrett, Minister of Labour, today announced the deferral of implementation of overtime regulations slated to take effect April 1, 2003. The deferral comes as a response to concerns brought forward by employers and employees around the possible impact of the new regulations on certain employment sectors in the province. (Full Story - 284 Words)

March 27, 2003 - Enhancement to small business deduction under the Income Tax Act - Finance Minister Joan Marie Aylward announced today an increase in the small business deduction under the Income Tax Act. The general corporate income tax rate is 14 per cent. However, incorporated small businesses are taxed at a rate of five per cent on a portion of their income. For taxation years up to and including 2002, small businesses paid the five per cent tax rate on their first $200,000 of active business income. Beginning in 2003, the portion of income subject to the preferential five per cent rate (the "small business deduction limit") will be increased by $25,000 a year for four years. (Full Story - 249 Words)

March 27, 2003 - Government announces new small business corporate income tax holiday - The NL Finance Minister today announced a corporate income tax (CIT) holiday for new small businesses in growth sectors of the economy. It is one of several initiatives provided for in Budget 2003 to strengthen the environment for business growth. The tax holiday will provide a provincial corporate income tax exemption to eligible new small businesses incorporated between April 1, 2003 and March 31, 2006. (Full Story - 392 Words)

March 27, 2003 - Government announces further payroll tax relief - The NL Finance Minister announced today payroll tax relief for businesses with annual payroll between $500,000 and $700,000. Effective from January 1, 2003, employers with payroll between $500,000 and $600,000 have been removed from the tax rolls. For employers with payrolls between $600,000 and $700,000 the exemption threshold will be phased down from $600,000 to $500,000. (Full Story - 435 Words)

March 27, 2003 - HRE initiatives to support low income families in 2002-03 - An increase in the Newfoundland and Labrador Child Benefit and the expansion of the Support Applications Program are the latest initiatives of the Department of Human Resources and Employment’s ongoing priority to improve supports for families with children. (Full Story - 547 Words)

Northwest Territories:

March 23, 2003 - Changes for NWT Workers’ Compensation Act - Joe Handley today introduced the first in a set of amendments designed to update and revitalize the Northwest Territories workers’ compensation system. Bill 15, amending the Workers’ Compensation Act, addresses over 70 per cent of recommendations made in 2002 by the WCB’s Legislative Review Panel in their report: Act Now. Proposed amendments will assist in resolving differences in medical opinions regarding treatment plans for injured workers, mandate healthcare providers, injured workers and the WCB to cooperate in the process of a worker’s recovery and formally establish the Workers’ Advisor office in legislation. (Full Story - 211 Words)

Nova Scotia:

March 28, 2003 - New WCB Benefits Introduced for Firefighters - The Nova Scotia government has introduced a bill that will give better workers' compensation coverage for both paid and volunteer firefighters who develop job-related diseases. While Manitoba and Alberta have similar legislation, Nova Scotia will be the first to cover volunteers. More than seven professional and 130 volunteer fire departments covered by Workers' Compensation will be eligible to benefit from the new legislation. Benefits can include a pension up to a maximum of $41,800. (Full Story - 357 Words)

Saskatchewan:

March 28, 2003 - Budget continues to build a prosperous and competitive economy - The 2003-04 budget continues to build a prosperous and competitive economy through investment in business and research, and further reductions in business taxes. The Small Business Corporation Income Tax rate is being reduced from 6.0 per cent to 5.5 per cent on January 1st, 2004, and further reduced to 5.0 per cent on January 1st, 2005. (Full Story - 714 Words)

The current release of GrandMaster Suite (3.70.03) incorporates a number of changes to make it even easier to use the program and perform your payroll tasks. Recent program changes since our last Payroll News issue include:

• Improved support for long file names - The program now allows you to install the program to folder that has a long file name or that contains spaces. Previously, you would encounter an error if you attempted to access data that was stored in a folder that did not conform to the 8.3 file naming convention.
• History transaction report now allows Province code selection - When creating the history transaction report, you now have the option of selecting the province code as a report field. This change makes it easy to create report sorted by province.
• Removed redundant prompt when creating Interim Payroll Register - We have removed the "Cheque # not issued" message that appeared when you created the Interim Payroll Register. This change does not affect any calculations but was simply added to speed up the process of verifying your data.
• Credit Union EFT format now allows Debit Bank Account option - When using the Credit Union format in the EFT module, you can now assign a Debit Bank Account. This enhancement can be seen in the Bank Submission Data section of the EFT Bank Profile dialog box.
• Warning messages can be disabled when creating customized payroll reports - We have added an option to disable certain messages that appear when you create a customized payroll report. This will allow prevent such warnings as "Group defined for different payroll" or the warning that an accumulator has gone into a prior year for it's balances (which in turn would report inaccurate prior year data for any earning and/or deductions selected to be included in this report).
• Sort Method changed in Schedule modules reports - We have improved the sorting method used in the Weekly Schedule and Calendar Schedule report by adding the ability to perform multi-level sorting based on a variety of payroll items. You can now sort on three different levels. This helps you break down a group of sort results by a further category for easier analysis. You can now also have the report created with page breaks based on the three levels of sorting. This makes it easier to analyze and break down the data from reports that contain a large number of results.
• Weekly Schedule and Calendar Schedule reports can now be exported - The Schedule module's Weekly Schedule and Calendar Schedule reports can now be exported to a CSV file. This can be useful if you need to extract the data for use in another application. The exported file can be customized with specific data and field positioning.
• Time Keeping module's Earning Processing Rule has been modified - We have added a checkbox entitled "Retain Hours in Original" to the Time Keeping module's Earning Processing Rule dialog box. When selected, any excess hours in the original earning are added to the specified Earning (as shown in the Transfer Code field) and they will also remain with the original earning (thus, still be calculated at the original earning's assigned rate). This can useful in special cases where you need to calculate excess hours based on the premium amount only, (not the regular amount plus the premium).
• Numerous other program fixes - We have also made a number of fixes and adjustments to the program. Click Here to view the complete list.

Stay tuned to CanPay's Product News page to receive the latest changes and release information for all GrandMaster products!

More News about the New GrandMaster!

To keep you up-to-date on the progress of the new GrandMaster, we have updated the CPS website to include screen captures and program features. Click Here to visit the site and learn more about our newest payroll processing solution!

As mentioned last issue, original users of GrandMaster (for DOS) or GrandMaster II (for DOS), will find that this tool incorporates many of the features they have found useful over the years. Another benefit is that original and new users alike will be able to run this version of GrandMaster from any operating system that supports Java (e.g. Windows, Macintosh OS, Linux etc.).

Stay tuned to this newsletter for further announcements about this exciting new product!

This month we continue with our basic review of the responsibilities and obligations that Canadian employers have with respect to the deduction of employee income tax, Canada Pension Plan contributions, and Employment Insurance premiums.

Deducting CPP for 2002 and 2003

Both employers and their employees have to pay CPP contributions on each employee's pensionable earnings. For the year 2002, the contribution rate for both employees and employers is 4.7% of the employee's pensionable earnings. The maximum pensionable earnings are set at $39,100. The basic exemption is $3,500.

For 2003, the contribution rate for both employees and employers is 4.95% of pensionable earnings. The maximum pensionable earnings are $39,900. The basic exemption is $3,500.

Employer Responsibilities

As an employer, you match each employee's contribution with your own funds. You have to deduct Canada Pension Plan contributions from an employee's pay if the employee is 18 or older but younger than 70. The employment must be pensionable, and the employee cannot be receiving a Canada Pension Plan retirement, or disability pension.

An employee is only entitled to the entire $3,500 basic exemption if they worked for you for the full year. For employees who work less than a full year, the exemption is prorated to the time they worked. For example, if they worked for you for 6 months, their exemption is one half of $3,500.

The CPP Maximum

You must stop deducting Canada Pension Plan contributions when the employee has reached their maximum contribution level. The maximum employee contribution for 2002 is $1,673.20. The maximum for 2003 is $1,801.80.

Keep in mind that you should not be including in your calculations any contributions your employee may have made through another employer in the year.

If you would like more infomation about the Canada Pension Plan, you can refer to the Payroll Deduction Tables webpage on the CCRA website. If you need more information on when and how to deduct CPP, the CCRA also provides this information in their Guide T4001 - Payroll Deductions (Basic Information).