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Income Tax Policies

Each year, before April 30, you must submit your income tax return for the previous year to Revenu Québec and the Canada Revenue Agency.

The tax slips necessary for your tax return are sent to you around February 28th.

Employee postdoctoral fellows

You will receive the T4 (federal) and R1 (provincial) tax slips.  These statements are sent by mail or are downloadable from your Self-Service Synchro if you signed up for the “Feuillets fiscaux électroniques” service before the end of January of the current year. An email to your university email address is sent to you when the slips are available. To subscribe to this service:

  1. Access your Synchro Self-service
  2. Select the "Paie et rénumération" menu.
  3. Click the "Consentement T4/T4A" tab.
  4. Check the box to give your consent.
  5. Click the Send button.
  6. Press OK when the message “Confirmation soumission” appears; you will automatically return to the T4/T4A Consent page. On the “Statut courant” line, the message “Consentement reçu” will appear.
  7. Simultaneously, you will receive an email from Synchro-HR-Production with the subject: “Avis de réception du consentement T4-T4A”.
  8. Don’t forget to repeat steps 2 to 7 for the Consent RL-1 (provincial statement).

Warning!

Postdoctoral fellows detaining a scholarship

  • If you are paid by your supervisor’s research fund managed at a research centre or hospital outside the UdeM, you will receive T4 (federal) and RI (provincial) tax slips from the Human Resources Department (HRD) of the research centre. The information concerning your tax statements will be given to you by the research centre’s HR department.
  • If you are a Mitacs or Banting scholarship holder, you will receive the T4 and R1 tax slips by mail from the UdeM Finance Department. It is important to keep your mailing address up to date in your Student Centre. If you do not receive your tax slips or if you notice an error, contact the UdeM Finance Department by writing to cde-academique@umontreal.ca.

N.B. To change your mailing address:

  • Go to the Personal Data tab of the Student Centre.
  • Select "Addresses" from the drop-down menu.
  • Click on the right arrow.
  • Select information to update and follow the instructions.
  • Remember to save before exiting.

If you are paid directly by a granting agency, you will receive your tax statements from the Finance Department of the agency concerned. For example, scholarship recipients from the CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC agencies receive the T4 slips from the granting agency that pays them the scholarships. Note that federal scholarship agencies do not issue R1s to scholarship recipients.

Revenu Québec Tax Rules

Regarding your provincial income tax return, you must consult Revenu Québec.

If you are an international postdoctoral fellow, you could, under certain conditions, be eligible for a provincial tax exemption.

Revenu Québec Tax Rules for foreign postdoctoral fellows

If you are an international postdoctoral fellow, you could, under certain conditions, be eligible for a provincial tax exemption.

To obtain this exemption, you must submit an eligibility certificate request to UdeM International. Your application must be sent before January 7th of each year, at the following address: udem-international@umontreal.ca.  

Please follow the links below to upload the required documents:

Your request will be sent to the Ministry of Higher Education who will issue the eligibility certificate. Upon reception, the HR department will forward it to you and produce the R1 tax slip (transmitted by Synchro libre-service or by mail) that needs to be included to your income tax return. Please note that the postdoctoral fellows who are employed by a research center (excluding CHU Sainte-Justine) have to transmit their eligibility certificate to the Human Resources department of their research center. 

To ensure you receive your R1 tax slip in time to produce your income tax return that needs to be submitted to Revenu Québec before April 30th of each year, the deadline to transmit your application (January 7th of each year) must be respected.

For more information about the eligibility criteria for the exemption, please consult the website of the Ministry of Higher Education or the Guide to Obtaining an Eligibility Certificate From the Minister of Higher Education (see Schedule 2 – List of eligible fields).

As an indication, here are the eligibility criteria for postdoctoral fellows:

  1. Is specialized in the field of pure or applied science or in a related field.
  2. Holds a postgraduate degree (Ph.D.) or an equivalent recognized by a Quebec university in the field of pure or applied science or in a related field for less than five years.
  3. Is committed as a researcher to a full-time, fixed term postdoctoral fellowship with an employer.
  4. Performs functions exclusively, and continuously as a researcher within the framework of a postdoctoral fellowship in the field of pure or applied science or in a related field.

If you have any questions regarding this section of the GPS’s website, please contact UdeM International: udem-international@umontreal.ca.

Canada Revenue Agency Tax Rules

At the federal level, the sums collected that are directly related to the completion of your postdoctoral fellowship are considered an income and are fully taxable. For tax rates, see the Canada Revenue Agency website.

Please note that the Université de Montréal does not deduct tax at source on the scholarships paid. You must therefore have sufficient financial resources to make the payments (taxes, installments, etc.).

Income Tax Declaration

Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (ESP) and UdeM do not provide advice for tax returns. You are strongly advised to contact a professional (accountant, tax specialist) for any tax-related questions. For information, visit the websites of Revenue Quebec and the Canada Revenue Agency.