Tax Accountant for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
Your company has no Canadian address, no Canadian bank account and nobody on the board who lives here, and you have just agreed to pay somebody in Ontario. The question that stops the first pay run is not how much to deduct. It is how a company that exists entirely offshore opens an account it can deduct into. Subsection 153(1) of the Income Tax Act puts the duty on the person paying salary, wages or other remuneration: deduct the prescribed amount and send it to the Receiver General. Nothing in that wording waits for a registration to be processed. The obligation begins with the first payment and the paperwork catches up afterwards, which is why so many of these files reach us with months of pay already out the door and no account number to put it against. We open the Business Number and the RP payroll account, establish which remitter you are and therefore when money is genuinely due, reconcile what reached the Receiver General against the PD7A statements, and file the T4 slips and T4 Summary for every person whose duties were performed here. Then the parts that catch a head office out: a remittance that leaves your bank on time and lands late is still late, subsection 227(9) grades the penalty by the length of the delay and reaches 10%, and section 230 wants the pay records, the remittance confirmations and the employment agreements kept for six years, because those agreements are what establish where the work was done — with AFFORDABLE flat fees.
AFFORDABLE Foreign Employer Tax Accountant
Two things are true at once here, and they pull against each other. The first is that nothing about your business has moved. Your premises, your bank, your directors and your payroll software are all exactly where they were last year. The second is that one person’s employment duties are now performed inside Canada, and that single fact brings a deduction and remittance duty with it under subsection 153(1) of the Income Tax Act, along with a reporting duty that falls every February. The duty attaches to the payment. It does not attach to a registration, a resolution or a letter from anybody. A company that has not yet applied for an account is not excused from deducting; it is simply running behind, and how far behind is measured from the pay date rather than from the day somebody at head office noticed.
The employers we look after run from a four-person software company abroad with one engineer in Kitchener to a listed group with eleven people working across Ontario. Headcount moves the remitter tier and very little else. The same three questions decide every one of these files: whether the account exists, whether the money arrives on the day it is due, and whether the February return agrees with what the account actually received. We settle those three, in that order, before anything else is discussed.
You employ the people. We will take the account, the remittances and the slips.
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Accounting That Understands How a Foreign Employer Hiring in Canada Actually Works
No other payroll has quite this shape. The employer sits offshore and the employee sits here, so every administrative step a Canadian company takes without thinking about it — opening the account, naming an authorised contact, funding a remittance — acquires an extra stage and an extra delay. Books that quietly assume a Canadian head office cannot tell you when money is going to land.
Stay Compliant and Minimize Your Foreign Employer Payroll Tax
On a file like this, staying compliant and keeping the cost down are the same habit: knowing the due date before the money is needed. Almost every penalty we are asked to clean up was avoidable by two or three banking days, and the records that answer a question from the Canada Revenue Agency are the same records that establish where the duties were performed.
Accounting & Tax Experts for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
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Why Choose Our Accounting Services for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada?
Tax Planning — The Due Date Before the Money
Your remitter type is established rather than assumed, the due dates go into a calendar you can actually see, and the funding is arranged backwards from the day the money has to be received.
Consulting — From One Hire to a Canadian Team
What changes as headcount grows is the remitter tier and the number of remittance events in a year. We tell you when the tier is about to move, because nothing in the post announces it.
CRA Representation — Late Periods and Misapplied Payments
A late or apparently missing period is answered with bank records, value dates and the PD7A history. We assemble that bundle first, and we never reply to a letter before we hold it.
Bookkeeping — Deductions, Remittances and February
Gross pay, deductions and employer contributions posted apart, every remittance matched to its period and its confirmation, and the PD7A reconciled as it arrives rather than once a year.
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Foreign Employer Clients
Foreign Employer Payroll and Accounting Services in Ontario
Corporate Tax Filing (T2) for Foreign Employers
Prepared beside the payroll account rather than by a separate team, so the remuneration in the accounts and the slips filed for the same people agree.
Bookkeeping & Accounting for Foreign Employers
Gross pay, deductions and employer contributions posted apart, every remittance matched to its period, and the PD7A reconciled as it arrives.
Payroll Services for Foreign Employers
Business Number and RP payroll account opened, remitter type established, remittances calendared on receipt dates, slips filed and WSIB opened at the first hire.
GST/HST Filing for Foreign Employers
13% where your company genuinely supplies here, with registration tested on your Canadian sales rather than on the fact that you now employ somebody.
Tax Planning for Foreign Employers
Remittance dates, the February deadline and the retention points set against your own month end instead of discovered in the week they fall due.
Corporate Catch-Up Filing for Foreign Employers
Unregistered and unremitted periods rebuilt oldest first, slips filed for years already closed, and relief requested on Form RC4288.
CRA Audit Resolution for Foreign Employers
Late periods, misapplied payments and worker-status queries answered with bank records, value dates and the PD7A history behind them.
CPA Financial Statements (Notice to Reader) for Foreign Employers
Canadian figures a bank or a parent board will accept, with accrued payroll and the unremitted balance shown as separate lines.
Incorporation Services for Foreign Employers
Where the group decides to put a Canadian company in place, the registration itself and its own Business Number, sales tax and RP payroll accounts.
Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services for Foreign Employers
Months of pay runs, bank payments and deductions reconstructed until the ledger, the bank record and the PD7A finally tell one story.
US Corporation & LLC Tax Filing for Foreign Employers
Both countries’ filings handled as a single exercise where the group files in the United States and employs people here.
Voluntary Disclosure Program for Foreign Employers
Come forward on pay made with nothing deducted, periods never remitted, or information returns that were never filed at all.
Accounting & Tax Services Tailored for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
Twelve services, written for a company with no Canadian premises, no Canadian bank account and one or more people whose employment duties are performed here.
- Where your group already reports in Canada, the corporate return is prepared alongside the payroll account rather than by a separate team, so the remuneration deducted in the accounts agrees with the slips filed for the same people.
- Payroll figures reach us from your own ledger in your own currency, and we convert them on a stated basis and keep the working, because somebody will ask which rate was used long after everybody has forgotten.
- Pay records, remittance confirmations and employment agreements are retained under section 230 of the Income Tax Act, whose retention period runs six years, and on an offshore file they are kept somewhere a Canadian reviewer can be shown them.
- For any period nobody filed, subsection 152(7) of the Income Tax Act permits the Canada Revenue Agency to assess on the information already in its hands, which is a statement of fact rather than a warning.
- Where there is a question about what your company owes in Canada beyond payroll, we say plainly that it is a separate determination and scope it separately, rather than folding a guess into a payroll engagement.
- Gross pay, the amounts deducted from it and the employer’s own contributions go to three separate accounts from the first pay run, so the balance owing to the Receiver General is a figure you read rather than derive.
- Every remittance is matched to the pay periods it covers and to the confirmation the bank issued, because the only real answer to a late-remittance assessment is the date on which the money was received.
- The PD7A statements are reconciled as they arrive rather than once in February, which is while a missed period is still a correction and before it has become an assessment with interest attached.
- Pay records are kept in a form that shows the days on which each person’s duties were performed in Canada, because that is the single fact every obligation described on this page depends upon.
- Where your accounting runs on QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage 50, Wagepoint or Payment Evolution we work inside it rather than beside it, with Dext or Hubdoc carrying the source documents across to us.
- The Business Number and the RP payroll account are opened for you, with the registration prepared on the route the Canada Revenue Agency actually accepts from a company that has no officer resident in Canada.
- Your remitter type is worked out from average monthly withholding rather than assumed, and we give you the resulting due date in writing before the first payment is funded out of your own treasury.
- Growth moves the tier. We watch the running average as Canadian headcount rises and warn you before the frequency changes, because nothing arrives in the post to announce that it has.
- Remittances are scheduled by the day on which they must be received rather than the day they are sent, which on an international transfer is a difference of two or three banking days.
- For each person whose duties were performed in Canada a T4 slip is prepared, the T4 Summary is filed by February’s final day, and both are then checked line against line with the PD7A record.
- Employing a person in Canada and making taxable supplies in Canada are different questions, and having somebody on your payroll here does not by itself put your company under a registration duty.
- Where you do supply goods or services here, the Ontario rate is 13% and registration becomes compulsory once taxable supplies pass $30,000 across four consecutive calendar quarters, measured as a rolling figure.
- We test the registration question against your actual Canadian sales rather than against the fact that you now have an employee here, because conflating the two produces filings nobody ever owed.
- Once an account exists, returns are filed on the period the Canada Revenue Agency assigns, and credits on what the company genuinely acquired for use in Canada are claimed in the period they arose.
- If you have been registered here for years and the Canadian payroll is the new part, we leave the sales tax account exactly where it is and keep the two engagements from leaning on each other.
- The planning on this file is calendar work rather than rate work. We set the remittance dates, the February deadline and the retention points against your own month end so nothing is found in the week it is due.
- Where a quarterly remitting option is open to a small employer with a clean filing record, we test whether you qualify rather than assume it, because the eligibility conditions are the part employers most often get wrong.
- Paying people fortnightly rather than weekly reduces the number of remittance events in a year, and on an accelerated tier that is a genuine reduction in the amount of administrative risk you carry.
- Whether your company owes Canadian tax on its own profits is a determination separate from payroll, and we keep it separate, because an assumption carried from one of those engagements into the other is expensive.
- The remitter thresholds, contribution ceilings and premium rates are all reset periodically, so every calendar we hand you carries the date it was prepared and the published figures it was built from.
- The earliest open period goes in ahead of the others, because interest on an unremitted amount has been running since that period’s own due date and keeps compounding while the filing stays outstanding.
- Where pay went out for months before anybody registered, the account is opened and the periods are then rebuilt in sequence, so each remittance is applied to the period it genuinely belongs to.
- Slips for every closed year are prepared from the pay records and filed late rather than left out, since an information return never filed carries a penalty of its own whether or not the tax was paid.
- Subsection 227(9) of the Income Tax Act grades the late-remittance penalty by the length of the delay and reaches 10%, so putting a period right is worth more the earlier in that delay it is done.
- Once the periods are lodged, Form RC4288 is used to request cancellation of penalty and interest where the default traces to circumstances you did not control, or to a mistake nobody at your own company made.
- A late-remittance assessment is answered with the bank record and not with an explanation. We assemble the instruction date, the value date and the confirmation before the first reply leaves our office.
- Where the Canada Revenue Agency says a period was never remitted, the usual cause is a payment applied to the wrong period or the wrong account, and that is a reallocation rather than a liability.
- Where a worker’s status is in question, the file is answered with the agreement, the invoices and the arrangement as it was actually operated, and we say up front that facts decide it rather than labels.
- Requests for pay records from a company whose books are held overseas are answered in a form a Canadian reviewer can work from, which is usually the single thing that shortens a review most.
- Where an assessment is simply wrong, a notice of objection goes in within the statutory period, and the case we put rests on your own payroll and banking record instead of the assumption the letter started from.
- Where a bank, a landlord or a parent board needs Canadian figures, we prepare the compilation engagement report so that the Canadian payroll and the amount owing to the Receiver General are both visible on it.
- Accrued pay, the unremitted balance standing at the period end and the employer’s own contribution cost appear as three figures, because merged into a single line they tell a reader almost nothing.
- Statements come out of the period close rather than weeks after it, so the Canadian numbers reach your consolidation on the day they are expected instead of holding up a group reporting deadline.
- Where the Canadian payroll is the only activity your company has here, the statements say so plainly rather than implying a trading operation that does not exist and inviting questions you do not need.
- Figures are stated in Canadian dollars and in the currency your group reports in, with the conversion basis disclosed rather than left for a reader to work out, because the two are read side by side.
- Where the group decides to put a Canadian company in place, we handle the registration on the Ontario Business Registry and open its own Business Number, sales tax and RP payroll accounts before the first pay run.
- The employment of the Canadian staff is then moved across at a pay period boundary rather than mid-period, so that no person ends up with two part-period slips for the same calendar year.
- The earlier payroll account is closed in order and its final slips filed, because leaving it open produces nil-return demands long after anybody at your head office is still watching for them.
- The first fiscal period end and the share structure are decided deliberately rather than by default, since between them they fix the filing deadlines the new company will be working to from day one.
- We do not advise on whether a Canadian company is the right answer for your group. That decision has legal and commercial parts to it, and we tell you plainly which parts of it are ours.
- Pay runs, bank payments and whatever was deducted across the missing months are reconstructed from your own payroll export and the account feed, taken in the order the overdue periods will have to follow.
- Each payment made to the Receiver General is traced to a period and to an account, because on a neglected file the commonest finding by far is money paid correctly and then applied to the wrong place.
- Where nothing at all was deducted, the gross figures are established first and the position is then stated honestly, since a reconstruction that guesses is worse than one that says what is still unknown.
- Employment agreements and travel records are gathered against the periods they cover, because they are the evidence of where each person’s duties were performed and nothing else in the file proves it.
- By the end of the rebuild the payroll ledger, the bank record and the PD7A statements tell one story, which is the condition the overdue filings have to be prepared from before anything is submitted.
- A company with a United States filing obligation and Canadian staff needs both returns handled as one exercise, so that an amount reported on one side is not described differently on the other.
- Payroll costs recharged between group companies have to be described consistently in both countries’ records, and we make certain the Canadian payroll figures we file agree with the intercompany schedule.
- Where the same individual works in both countries the social security position is governed by its own arrangement and its own paperwork, obtained from the home country authority rather than from the Canada Revenue Agency.
- Owners and officers who are personally filing in both countries are dealt with alongside the corporate work rather than after it, because the two sets of deadlines sit several weeks apart.
- We say plainly where a question is a United States one, and answer it from that side rather than reasoning about a foreign filing obligation from a Canadian starting point.
- The Voluntary Disclosures Program rewards whoever speaks first. Form RC199 carries the submission, nothing may be left out of it, and the periods disclosed must already be twelve months or more past due.
- Months of pay made with nothing deducted is the usual reason a foreign employer comes forward, and the disclosure has to cover every affected period rather than the ones easiest to reconstruct.
- Slips never filed for closed years go in with the disclosure, because an information return left out keeps the file open long after the money has been paid and the account brought up to date.
- Acceptance removes the penalties and part of the interest and leaves the tax, which set against being assessed on an identical set of facts is a materially different amount for a head office to find.
- Where the Canada Revenue Agency has already written to you about those periods, the route is closed for them, and we say so immediately rather than preparing a submission that cannot be accepted.
Foreign Employer Payroll Account & Remittance Check
Six questions on whether the account exists, which remitter type you are, when a remittance has to be received, how the PD7A is reconciled, and whether the February slips went in. No fee shown.
1. Do you have a Business Number with an RP payroll account open for your Canadian staff?
2. Do you know which remitter type you are and the due date that follows from it?
3. Is each remittance timed by the day it must be received rather than the day you send it?
4. Are the PD7A statements reconciled against your payroll ledger as they arrive?
5. Were T4 slips and a T4 Summary filed for everyone whose duties were performed in Canada?
6. Is there a signed agreement on file recording where each person’s duties are performed?
Free CPA Consultation for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
Case Studies: Foreign Employer Payroll Accounting & Tax
Simcoe — Four Months of Pay and No Account
The problem: An overseas company hired its first Canadian employee, based in Simcoe, and paid her monthly out of its own bank for four months before anyone asked whether a Canadian account was needed. Nothing had been deducted, no Business Number existed, and the head office view was that registration could wait until the hire was confirmed as permanent.
What we did: We opened the Business Number and the RP payroll account, established the remitter type from the pay already made, rebuilt each of the four months as its own period so that every amount landed where it belonged, filed the slips for the year that had already closed, and asked for relief on Form RC4288.
The result:
- Account opened and the four months applied period by period
- Slips filed for a calendar year already closed
- Relief sought on the periods that ran before registration
Ingersoll — Instructed on the Due Date, Received Two Days Later
The problem: The employer of an Ingersoll-based employee instructed its remittance from an overseas bank on the due date every month, which its treasury team regarded as compliant. Two of those payments cleared after the date and were assessed. Nobody had ever looked at the value date, only at the date the instruction went out.
What we did: We moved the instruction forward by three banking days, rebuilt the calendar on receipt dates instead of send dates, reconciled the PD7A history to establish which periods were genuinely short and which only looked short, and answered the two assessments with the bank records for those periods.
The result:
- Calendar rebuilt on the day money must be received
- Periods that only looked unpaid traced to the right place
- Both assessed periods answered out of bank records
Aylmer — An Invoice With No Agreement Behind It
The problem: A foreign employer treated its Aylmer worker as self-employed and paid monthly invoices for two years. There was no written agreement at all, the worker used equipment the company had shipped out and worked for nobody else, and the arrangement was described two different ways in two internal documents. Then the employer was asked to produce the agreement.
What we did: We set out what the arrangement showed on its own facts rather than on its label, explained that the question is decided on the relationship and not on the paperwork chosen to describe it, and then opened the account and filed the periods and the slips from the date the facts supported.
The result:
- Arrangement documented on its facts, not its label
- Payroll account opened and the periods filed in order
- Position put in writing before any contact from CRA
How We Work With Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
Our clear, efficient process ensures every step is transparent, building trust and long-term client relationships.
Kickoff (Document Request)
What we ask for first: your incorporation and registered details, the employment agreement for each Canadian person, the pay records to date, any account correspondence already received from the Canada Revenue Agency, every bank confirmation for amounts sent to the Receiver General, and any PD7A statements that have arrived.
First 30 Days (Registration & Setup)
The Business Number and RP payroll account opened or confirmed, the authorised contact settled, the remitter type worked out from the pay already made, a remittance calendar built on receipt dates, and gross pay, deductions and employer contributions separated in the ledger.
Monthly Close
Each pay run posted and reconciled, the remittance instructed early enough to be received by its due date, the confirmation filed against the period it covers, the PD7A checked against the ledger as it arrives, and the running average watched against the tier.
Quarterly Planning Review
The remitter tier retested as headcount changes, the calendar reissued where the frequency has moved, the record bundle under section 230 reviewed for custody rather than for existence, and any period showing a difference cleared while it is still small.
Year-End Close & Slip Filing
The year’s deductions reconciled to the PD7A period by period, T4 slips and the T4 Summary prepared and filed by the last day of February, amended slips issued where a figure has moved since, and the retention file closed off.
Get Your Foreign Employer Payroll Done Right Today
Affordable Pricing for Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada
We believe in clear, upfront pricing so you know exactly what to expect. All fees include HST.
- Tax Preparation (Corporation) — From $400
- Tax Return Filing (Corporation) — From $400
- Tax Compliance Audit — FREE CRA audit support for our clients
- Tax Strategy — FREE for our clients
- Accounting Base Plan — From $100 per month
- Bookkeeping Management — Free for our Accounting clients
- Financial Reporting — Free for our Accounting clients
- Business Formation — Flat $35
- Incorporation Process — Flat $35
- Entity Setup Assistance — Flat $35
- Full-Service Payroll — From $125 per month
Payment is by Interac e-Transfer to info@gondaliyacpa.ca only. Security question: Not Applicable, as auto-deposit is enabled.
Meet Your Lead Foreign Employer Payroll Accountant
Two people handle your file, the same two every year. They know which remitter tier you are on and which periods have ever gone short.
What Our Clients Say
More than 1300 verified five-star Google reviews, a number of them from finance teams overseas running a Canadian payroll for the first time.
Serving Foreign Employers Hiring in Canada Across Ontario
From one engineer in Kitchener to a dozen people spread across the province, the same two questions decide whether a foreign employer’s Canadian payroll year closes quietly: does the account exist, and did each remittance arrive on the day it was due. We act for offshore employers with staff in Toronto, Markham, Oakville, Kitchener, Cambridge, London, Hamilton, Guelph, Windsor, Ottawa, Oshawa, Brampton, Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York, and the registration is the same piece of work wherever the person happens to sit.
Toronto (ON)
55 Queen St E Ste 1205, Toronto, ON M5C 1R6, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Mississauga (ON)
2100 Camilla Rd #716, Mississauga, ON L5A 2J8
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Brampton (ON)
4 Starhill Crescent, Brampton, ON L6R 2P9, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Scarborough (ON)
24 Clementine Square, Scarborough, ON M1G 2V7, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Vaughan (ON)
19 Cabinet Crescent, Woodbridge, ON L4L 6H9, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Oshawa (ON)
210 Durham St, Oshawa, ON L1J 5R3, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Ottawa (ON)
2090 Neepawa Ave a314, Ottawa, ON K2A 3L6, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Etobicoke (ON)
60 Stevenson Rd #1601, Etobicoke, ON M9V 2B4, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Hamilton (ON)
70 Starling Dr, Hamilton, ON L9A 0C5, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Guelph (ON)
1155 Gordon St, Guelph, ON N1L 1S8, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Windsor (ON)
4387 Guppy Ct, Windsor, ON N9G 2N8, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
North York (ON)
150 Graydon Hall Dr #912, North York, ON M3A 3B2, Canada
+1 (647) 212-9559
9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)
Foreign Employer Payroll Accounting & Tax FAQs
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Foreign Employer Payroll Accounting & Tax Done Right.
A Business Number and an RP payroll account opened for a company with no Canadian address, on the route the Canada Revenue Agency actually accepts. Your remitter type established from average monthly withholding rather than assumed, with the due dates written onto a calendar built backwards from the day the money has to be received. Every remittance matched to its period and its bank confirmation, so a late-remittance assessment is answered with a record instead of an explanation. The PD7A reconciled as each statement arrives rather than once in February. A T4 Summary and its slips lodged on February’s final day for everyone whose duties were performed in Canada, reconciled to what the account actually received. Subsection 227(9) grades the late-remittance penalty by the length of the delay and reaches 10%, which is precisely why the calendar is the deliverable. Section 230 records held for six years, in a form somebody in Canada can produce. AFFORDABLE flat fees, no hourly billing. Licensed CPA Ontario. 1300+ five-star reviews. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.