Employer

We generally consider you to be an employer if you:

• pay salaries, wages (including advances), bonuses, vacation pay, or tips to your employees
• provide certain taxable benefits to your employees (for example, an automobile or allowances)

An individual is an employee if the worker and the payer have an employer-employee relationship. This relationship is referred to as employment under a contract of service.

Although the intent of a written contract might mean that an individual is self-employed (and therefore working under a contract for services), we cannot consider the individual as self-employed if there is evidence of an employer-employee relationship.

Trustee

Employment by a trustee

A trustee includes a liquidator, a receiver, a receiver-manager, a trustee in bankruptcy, an assignee, an executor, an administrator, a sequestrator, or any other person who performs a function similar to the one a trustee performs.

A trustee does both of the following:

• authorizes a payment or causes a payment to be made for another person
• administers, manages, distributes, winds up, controls, or otherwise deals with another person's property, business, estate, or income 

The trustee is jointly and severally, or solidarily, liable for deducting and remitting the income tax, Canada Pension Plan contributions, and employment insurance premiums for all payments the trustee makes.

Trustee in bankruptcy

The trustee in bankruptcy is the agent of a bankrupt employer in the event of an employer’s liquidation, assignment, or bankruptcy. If a bankrupt employer has deducted CPP contributions, EI premiums, or income tax from amounts employees received before the bankruptcy but has not remitted these amounts to us, the trustee must hold the amounts in trust. These amounts are not part of the estate in bankruptcy and should be kept separate.

If a trustee continues to operate the bankrupt employer’s business, the trustee must get a new business number. The trustee has to continue to deduct and remit the necessary CPP contributions, EI premiums, and income tax according to the bankrupt employer’s remittance schedule. The trustee should prepare and file T4 information returns (slips) in the usual way.

All other trustees

If a trustee continues to operate the employer’s business, the trustee needs a new business number. The trustee has to continue to deduct and remit the necessary CPP contributions, EI premiums, and income tax according to the employer’s remittance schedule. Fees paid to executors, liquidators, or administrators are either income from office or employment or business income, depending on whether the executor or administrator acts in this capacity in the regular course of business.

Payer of other amounts related to employment

A payer of other amounts can be an employer, a trustee, an estate executor, a liquidator, an administrator, or a corporate director who pays other types of income related to an employment. This income can include:

• pension or superannuation
• lump-sum payments
• self-employed commissions
• annuities
• retiring allowances
• patronage allowances
• accumulated income payments (AIPs)
• educational assistance payments (EAPs)
• fees or other amounts for services
• other income such as:
  • research grants
  • payments from a Registered disability savings plan (RDSP)
  • wage-loss replacement plan payments if you were not required to withhold Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions and employment insurance (EI) premiums
  • death benefits
  • certain benefits paid to:
    • partnerships
    • shareholders

To see if you should deduct CPP, EI or tax from these payments, see the Special payments chart.