Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR december 1, 2014 FeAtures/News 17 Register today for industry recognized live or on demand webinars at the Carswell Professional Development Centre. www.hrreporter.com/cpdcentre Join a live 1 hour webinar during your lunchtime that includes a presentation and/or a panel discussion led by industry experts and a live Q&A session where participants can submit live questions to be answered by presenters. These accredited courses are aimed at professionals and employers looking to further their professional development within HR and contextualise acquired knowledge and skills in their workplace. Current industry partnerships include: • Human Resources Professionals Association • Human Resources Institute of Alberta • Human Resources Association of New Brunswick • Canadian Human Rights Commission DO YOU HAVE 1 HOUR TO SPEND ON YOUR HR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT? THOMSON REUTERS CARSWELL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE WEBINAR SERIES portion transferred is not subject to income tax deductions. "Sometimes, because we're get- ting into the dollars and cents and the payout of those funds, HR re- moves themselves and says, 'e ball's in your court, payroll. You are the ones making these pay- ments so you need to communi- cate that to the employee,'" says Fiume. If an employee decides to trans- fer, payroll must calculate the amount eligible for tax-free trans- fer. e CRA limits the amount to $2,000 for each year or partial year before 1996 that the em- ployee worked for the employer, plus $1,500 for each year or partial year before 1989 in which none of the employer's RPP or DPSP contributions were vested in the employee when the employer paid the retiring allowance. e $1,500 amount can be pro-rated accord- ing to the percentage of vesting under the plan. To make the trans- fer process easier, Fiume suggests payroll professionals have depart- ing employees use the CRA's old TD2 form. When it comes to paying out the elements of the termination package, payroll professionals have to make sure they comply with employment standards. Payroll should check the appli- cable legislation for the specific timeframes. e federal code re- quires employers to pay severance pay within 30 days of an employee becoming entitled to it. In Ontario, employers have to pay no later than seven days af- ter employment ends or on what would have been the next regular pay, whichever is later. Ontario law does allow employers to pay in installments over a period of up to three years if the employer gets the employee's written per- mission to do so or the director of employment standards approves it. If the employer fails to make a payment on time, the amount still owing becomes immediately due. Reporting severance pay on a T4, RL-1 and Record of Employ- ment (ROE) should be straight- forward if payroll properly sepa- rated termination pay from sev- erance from the beginning, says Fiume. Since severance pay is not regular employment income, it is not reported in box 14 on a T4. Payroll should report it in the Other Information area on the T4, using code 66 for the amount of a retiring allowance eligible for tax-free transfer and code 67 for the non-eligible amount (or codes 68 and 69, respectively, for Status Indians with tax-exempt income). For Quebec, severance pay is re- ported in box O of an RL-1, using code RJ. When it comes to the ROE, it is important for payroll to remem- ber to include severance pay- ments in block 17C on the form, says Fiume. To help keep track, she recommends they follow a termination checklist if they don't already have one. Sheila Brawn is editor of Canadian Payroll Reporter, a sister publication to Canadian HR Reporter. For more information, visit www.payroll-re- porter.com. severANce < pg. 16 as Apple and Facebook could consider, such as subsidized child care, on-site daycare or longer pa- rental leaves, said Cheung. "at would be a lot more exciting." e discussion should be about changing the social fabric, valuing childbirth and supporting women through good salaries and train- ing, and ensuring they don't lose their seniority after taking time off to have children, he said. "at, to me, may be a better use of resources." Legal concerns e big issue will be whether the offering of such an employment benefit constitutes discrimina- tion under various human rights legislation, said Dana Du Perron, an associate lawyer at Nelligan O'Brien Payne in Ottawa. "It's where you could demon- strate that, in offering that ben- efit, employers expected women to make use of it and to put off having children or if women who opted to have children and not freeze eggs were treated different, then there is that issue." And offering a $20,000 benefit to one group of employees, based on sex, is treading into dangerous territory, she said. "ere's also potentially an ar- gument made that this service is just rendering the service equal for women so the service doesn't have to be provided to men. So if it does come to Canada, it'll be interesting to see how that all sort of shakes down and how the courts rule." In the 2007 case Buffett v. Ca- nadian Forces, a male Canadian Forces member brought a dis- crimination claim against the Ca- nadian Forces for refusing to cover intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which helps with male in- fertility, while covering in vitro fer- tilization (IVF), said Du Perron in an online post. e Federal Court, on judicial review of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's decision, said Terry Buffett had been dis- criminated against, according to the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Canadian Forces health- care plan should cover the cost of the ICSC for male members, though not the IVF portion which was generally covered by provin- cial health-care plans. "In light of this, if an employer offers egg freezing for female em- ployees but refuses to cover simi- lar procedures for male employ- ees (for example, sperm freezing, as research has shown that sperm from older men are associated with more genetic abnormalities), it might breach human rights leg- islation in Canada," she said. e status of Canadian law on fertility is quite grey, said Erin Lepine, an associate lawyer at Nel- ligan O'Brien Payne in Ottawa. "It's definitely an incomplete body of law so there's a lot of un- certainty even with the things that we are doing right now about how we can really go forward. So any- one taking part in this area of the law is practising with caution and we're advising our clients quite cautiously about 'Here's what we can tell you for sure and here's what we still don't know,'" she said. "(Employers are) going to have to think about what sort of consent they're going to put on file about how the material can be used and who can make use of it, and really train the people who are working with these benefits to understand what sort of consent can be given and how it can be withdrawn." It might make more sense to have a fund that can be applied towards fertility treatments in general, as opposed to a specific procedure, said Du Perron. Discrimination concerns FroZeN eGGs < pg. 10 offering a $20,000 benefit to one group of employees and not others, based on sex, is treading into dangerous territory.

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