- My suggestion is that there be a flat dollar amount, payable at the start of every month, as a retainer. For this, I would promise to reply to questions asked within 12 hours of receiving them, barring unforeseen circumstances. Since the volume will vary from time to time, my suggestion is $200/month Canadian, plus GST. If there was some large, significant increase in the volume of questions, that might indicate this dollar amount would have to be reviewed.
- There seems to be some confusion around the status of a travel allowance that would be reportable in T4 box 14 and code 32. I assume by “allowance”, they mean “non-accountable allowance”, in other words a pre-determined cash payment that does not directly reflect the actual travel expenses incurred. If this assumption holds, the allowance is a cash payment, an earning that falls into the definition of salary and wages. There is no GST on salary and wages paid to employees. Questions about GST, including any possible employer remittance or Input Tax Credits do not apply. Page 38 of T4130-20 (right hand column) says no GST is deemed to have been collected on the payment of allowances. At the same time, page 41 of the same guide says you can’t claim an ITC if the benefit provided was exclusively for the employee’s personal use.
Thank you for your response.
I am expecting that in normal sense it would be a non accountable allowance but specific for travel in prescribe Zone then only it could be captured in box 32 so that employee can take benefit of this. Further specific entry in Benefit table Says one has to include the GST/HST in Travel Assistance in a prescribe zone- in case (Specifically for box 32). do you think still that it would be considered as cash allowance and company can issue T4 with box 32 without any deemed GST applicability for this kind of cash allowance.
On cash allowance part… what i review it appeared to me that cash allowance works like petty cash to employee which means employee can spend on behalf of company without justifying or supporting the bill. so this petty cash concept differs as far as reimbursement is concerned.
Why would benefit guide code specific line entry for travel assistance in cash and for box 32 to collect GST. There is another entry in benefit guide refer to travel assistance in Kind that too is covered for GST.
Further can employee claim that allowance on Box 32 for prescribe zone travel & take benefit of this on their personal income tax return. Don’t you think it could create an issue for company to give suck kind of allowance just to take advantage to reduce income tax without any cost to anybody.
Though benefit guide headings says no GST is applicable no the cash allowance but on our research it appears that those cash allowance is kind of accountable expenses in nature i mean for the performance of duty.
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