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In some Canadian provinces, employers are required to pay Employer Payroll Taxes (EPT) based on their payroll. These taxes help fund provincial health services and are calculated based on a business’s total payroll. The Nmbr API allows you to review the calculated EPT for each payroll, as well as override the default settings used in the calculation. Nmbr currently supports EPT calculation for the following provinces: Note that EPT is calculated based on the best available information at the time of payroll. However, final EPT obligations calculated at the end of the year may differ due to changes in payroll, such as adjustments in headcount, total remuneration, or the provinces where employees work. To support more accurate calculations throughout the year, Nmbr allows you to override default assumptions with custom values that better reflect your expected annual situation.

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EPT calculation

EPT is generally calculated per payroll and per province. The following attributes are used to determine the EPT:
  • Payroll remuneration – The total amount of eligible remuneration in the payroll, based on each work assignment’s current province of employment.
  • Annual remuneration – The expected annual remuneration for the business entity in the province. By default, this is forecasted based on year-to-date earnings and the current payroll.
  • Exemption amount – The amount of payroll remuneration exempt from EPT. By default, this is set to the provincial exemption amount, adjusted for the expected annual remuneration.
  • EPT rate – The applicable rate based on the province and the expected annual remuneration. This rate is used to calculate the EPT on the payroll remuneration.
If no overrides are provided, Nmbr uses real-time forecasting based on payroll data to estimate these values.

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Overriding EPT settings

Because payroll can change significantly over the course of the year, the EPT calculation is designed to adapt based on current information. However, if you already know that the default assumptions won’t reflect your actual year-end situation — for example, if you expect major hiring in the coming months — you can provide override values using Tax Properties. The following tax properties are available to override EPT calculations by province:
  • British Columbia: ca::bc::eht
  • Manitoba: ca::mb::eht
  • Newfoundland and Labrador: ca::nl::eht
  • Ontario: ca::on::eht
  • Quebec: ca::qc::eht
Each of these properties accepts a JSON object with the following attributes: 
{
  "annual_remuneration": 1200000,
  "exemption": 500000,
  "rate": 2.1
}
  • annual_remuneration – The expected annual remuneration for the business in that province.
  • exemption – The amount of remuneration that should be exempt from EPT.
  • rate – The EPT rate to apply, expressed as a percentage.
Each value is optional. If you only need to override one field (e.g., exemption), you can omit the others.
Note for Quebec: The exemption field is not applicable for Quebec’s HSF. Only annual_remuneration and rate should be used.
Note: Overrides take precedence over forecasted values. If set, they will be used directly in the EPT calculation.

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EPT reporting

The approved EPT amount for each payroll is available in the employer-health-tax report. When the report is generated, Nmbr will re-calculate the EPT using the most current payroll information. This recalculation does not affect the originally calculated EPT amount, but it allows you to review expected EPT obligations for reconciliation or audit purposes.