Reporting assessable earnings for injury claims

When the WCB requests wage information from you, it is important for you to include all T4 assessable earnings.

When do you need to report assessable earnings to the WCB?

You need to report all assessable earnings to the WCB if:

1. You have a time-loss injury. In this case, the WCB needs to establish a wage base for the time loss claim and will request the gross earnings for 52 weeks prior to the first earnings loss date.
2. You have a return-to-work plan that gradually returns a worker back to work. In this case, you will need to report two weeks at a time for what they worked for the duration of the return-to-work plan.

What are assessable earnings?

Assessable earnings are gross earnings before income tax, employment insurance, pension and other deductions. Box 14 of a worker’s T4 slip usually captures the correct assessable amounts.

Assessable earnings include, but are not limited to:

• salaries and hourly wages
• overtime pay
• commissions
• bonuses
• vacation pay
• paid leave (such as a sabbatical, maternity and paternity)
• taxable benefits (such as housing, board and room, lodging, personal or living allowances, car allowance, loans, employer-paid premiums on group life insurance, medical services and disability plans, stock options and travel allowances)
• profit-sharing plan (distribution of profits reporting on T4 or T4A)

The WCB's policy Assessable Earnings (POL 24/2010) provides more information on what amounts are considered assessable and which are not. 

If any type of assessable earnings is reported on a T4, it should also be reported to the WCB.

If you are unsure what assessable earnings to report, please contact the WCB for advice.