New: Canadian Dental Care Plan

The Canadian Dental Care Plan (“CDCP”) will assist with accessing oral health care, and it applies to eligible Canadian residents with an annual adjusted family net income of less than $90,000, who do not already have access to dental insurance, and who have filed their prior year personal tax return.

Beginning with the 2023 calendar year, employers must report on a T4 or T4A slip whether, on December 31st of the prior tax year, a payee or any of their family members were eligible to access dental insurance or dental coverage of any kind, including health spending and wellness accounts due to their current or former employment. This reporting requirement is mandatory beginning with the 2023 tax year and will continue to be a requirement on an annual basis. Failing to report this information may result in financial penalties.

To support these new reporting requirements, the following changes were made to the T4 and T4A slips:

Box 45, Employer-offered dental benefits, was added to the T4. This new box will be mandatory for all T4 slips.
Box 015, Payer-offered dental benefits, was added to the T4A. This new box will be mandatory if an amount is reported in Box 016, Pension or Superannuation. The box will otherwise be optional.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) may reject any T4 or T4A slip that is filed without this information.

In order to clarify for whom the dental coverage, if any, is for, one of the following codes in Box 45 of a T4 slip or Box 015 of a T4A slip must be selected.

Code

Access

Not eligible to access any dental care insurance, or coverage of dental services of any kind

Payee only

Payee, spouse, and dependent children

Payee and their spouse

Payee and their dependent children

See below for further reporting guidance:

Situation

Use of Code 1 – T4 slips filed for calendar year 2023 only

To reduce the burden on employers, for calendar year 2023 only, it is not mandatory to fill out box 45 when and only when Code 1 is applicable.

This administrative policy applies only if all reasonable efforts have been made to comply with the reporting requirements.

T4 Slips filed before January 2024

To reduce the burden on employers, if you filed your T4 slips for calendar year 2023 before January 2024, you do not have to file amended T4 slips to report a code.

Third party filing T4 slips

Any third-party organizations or pension plan administrators that complete T4 slips annually on behalf of their clients are required to complete this box (if nothing is reported in box 16 reporting is optional). They are required to obtain the information from their clients and report it accurately on the T4 slip issued.

Union-offered dental coverage

If a union offers dental benefits to its members, the union would not be considered as their employer and would not be required to issue a T4 slip to report this benefit for their members, or provide this information to the member's employer. A union will have to report this benefit for its own employees or former employees.

Multiple T4 slips

If you file multiple T4 slips for an employee on various RP accounts of your single business number, you need to consistently report on all slips what coverage was offered on December 31 of that year.

For more information visit Canadian Dental Care Plan.

New: Canadian Dental Care Plan

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) may reject any T4 or T4A slip that is filed without this information.

SBLR Team