In a Year of Change, Year-End Training More Critical Than Ever

Canadian Payroll Association Seminars Provide Crucial Year-End Guidance for Payroll, Accounting and HR

TORONTO, Oct. 12, 2017 /CNW/ - 2017 saw many legislative and regulatory changes affecting payroll year-end, more changes than have been seen in the past several years. Significant changes include greater use of electronic T4s (a payroll best practice) and enhancements to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). A number of provinces, including Ontario and Alberta, also saw expansive employment standards amendments. Such legislative variability adds complexity for payroll, HR and accounting professionals tasked with payroll compliance at year-end.

To help take the stress out of year-end, the Canadian Payroll Association's (CPA's) popular year-end training provides practitioners with the legislative changes, tools and compliance knowledge to manage year-end confidently and effectively. Employers and their payroll, accounting and HR staff can also get help overcoming key reporting challenges faced by organizations and brush up on the CRA's top 10 audit adjustment issues.

The CPA provides guidance on all these issues in its full-day Year-end and New Year Requirements seminar (available online and in-person), and the half-day Legislative Updates: Year-end and New Year seminar, an in-person workshop designed for experienced payroll practitioners. Both these offerings support practitioners looking to understand what is changing legislatively for year-end and what to anticipate for the New Year.

Here's some of the key issues that will be covered through this essential training:

How to Prepare for the Canada Pension Plan Enhancement

Employer and employee CPP contribution rates will begin increasing in 2019 and will incrementally increase over the subsequent seven years. Preparation is key for employers to ensure that the necessary changes are programmed into their payroll systems in 2018 to fulfill their legal responsibilities for when the CPP expansion later goes into effect. Employers should also anticipate that such changes may affect organizational policies, staff responsibilities and remuneration planning.

Expansive Employment Standards Amendments

Several provinces introduced changes to employment standards legislation that will affect employers now and for years to come. In Alberta, Bill 17 introduced significant amendments to the Employment Standards Code including adjustments to banked overtime rates, statutory holiday payments, maternity and compassionate care leaves. Many of these changes will come into effect on January 1^st, 2018 including provisions to introduce new unpaid leaves for critical illness of a child, bereavement and domestic violence. In Ontario, Bill 148, once passed, will see changes to the Employment Standards Act, affecting everything from minimum wage to vacation pay to paid and unpaid leaves. Many of these amendments are also set to come into effect on January 1, 2018.

How to Mitigate Your Audit Risk

Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) provides the CPA with a list of the most commonly requested adjustments to an employer's payroll as a result of wages and benefits not being correctly reported. For the 2016 reporting year, unreported salaries, remuneration and commissions, contract of service (employer-employee relationship determinations), and automobile standby charges and operating expenses top the list. Because compliance remains a major challenge for employers across Canada, all ten adjustments are covered in the CPA's year-end training.

Are You Prepared for Year-end?

The CPA's year-end seminars are available from October to December at various locations across Canada, with limited locations in January. For a complete listing of seminar dates and for more information on the CPA's Professional Development Seminars, Certification Programs and Benefits of Membership, visit payroll.ca / paie.ca.

About the Canadian Payroll Association:
Canada's 1.5 million employers rely on payroll practitioners to ensure the timely and accurate annual payment of $928 billion in wages and taxable benefits, $313 billion in statutory remittances to the federal and provincial governments, and $177 billion in health and retirement benefits, while complying with more than 200 federal and provincial regulatory requirements. Since 1978, the Canadian Payroll Association has annually influenced the payroll compliance practices and processes of over 500,000 organizational payrolls.

SOURCE Canadian Payroll Association