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bradleyclifford
August 17, 2021
Question

Processing the sale of employee stock options through payroll

  • August 17, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

We recently raised a funding round and a secondary round was included which allowed employees to sell back some of their employee stock options to the company. We are a Canadian Controlled Private Company and the sale of the employee options is a cashless transaction so they qualify for the 50% reduction (25% for Quebec) on the taxable gains. 

 

We have been advised that these gains should be paid out via payroll as they are considered to be employment income (due to the nature of the transaction) but we are having trouble working out how to process these through Quickbooks Payroll. 

 

Has anyone had experience with this and can advise on how we need to process these payments through Quickbooks payroll so that they are taxed correctly and also hit the required boxes on the T4 at the end of the tax year? 

2 replies

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bradleycliffordAuthor
August 17, 2021

It's also worth adding that the transactions need to hit box 38 and 39 on the T4 according to the CRA but there does not seem to be an option within QBO to process transactions which hit these boxes. 

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LauraAB
August 17, 2021

Hi bradleyclifford,

 

I can see you've already done a bit of research into this, and it sounds like you've got someone you've consulted about how this should be given to your employees. I want to make sure you have the best direction for handling this sort of situation with sales of employee stocks in QuickBooks Online Payroll.

 

It looks to me like you've already been taking a peek at what options are available for setting up payroll items. I appreciate the importance of ensuring they hit certain boxes and reflect properly on T4s and other forms. Since you're not seeing the options to set this up as you'd like, my recommendation is to consult an accountant.

 

Accountants, in particular ones that are familiar with QuickBooks, will be able to assess the options and let you know the best course of action for recording payment to your employees. The My Accountant tab in QuickBooks Online gives you the chance to connect with an accountant by inviting someone you're already working with to be a user on the account or by providing the Find a pro to help button. This button takes you to our list of QuickBooks-certified accountants in your area.

 

Feel free to submit feedback about the available payroll options if you'd like, that way our product development team can see the different features that users would like for Payroll. Our How do I submit feedback? article walks you through it, and then there's also our QuickBooks Online Feature & Product Updates page that you can bookmark if you'd like to see what's new each quarter.

 

I wish you the best with working through this!

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