What is Line 15000 on My Tax Return?
Line 15000 on your tax return lists your total income before deductions, otherwise known as your gross income. It includes not only your wages or salary from your T4 – Statement of Remuneration Paid, but also income from other sources that you may have received. What you make in a year is, after all, often more than just what your employer pays you hourly or yearly.
When Do I Need to Know My Total Income?
There are many situations when the government, a bank, or another organization may need to know your total income or what’s listed on Line 15000 of your last tax return. For example:
- For legal purposes, such as determining child or spousal support payments.
- For financial purposes, such as obtaining or refinancing a loan, Line of Credit or mortgage.
- For signing up or logging into your CRA My Account online or if you call the CRA.
How Do I Calculate Line 15000 on My Tax Return?
Your total income is calculated based on all other income in “Step 2 total-income” of your tax return. Happily, TurboTax software is doing all the heavy lifting here, adding up many of the income lines that are to be included in this total.
Here are common sources of income you may have that must be included when you calculate Line 15000 – Total Income. Note that these amounts are total amounts before any contributions you make to pensions, employment insurance and other similar programs.
Line 10100 – Employment Income: From Box 14 on your T4 – Statement of Remuneration slips.
Line 10400 – Employment Income Not Reported on a T4 Slip: Such as tips and gratuities, or casual income not reported on a T4.
Line 11300 – OAS Benefits: Old Age Security (OAS), Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) or the Allowance from the T4A(OAS) – Statement of Old Age Security slip.
Line 11400 – CPP or QPP Benefits: Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) benefits from your T4A(P) – Statement of Canada Pension Plan Benefits slips.
Line 11500 – Other Pensions and Superannuation: You may receive a T4A – Statement of Pension Retirement, Annuity or Other Income slip that tells you how much you received from a pension or superannuation.
Line 11600 – Elected Split-Pension Amount: Eligible pension income includes income you receive from splitting your spouse or common-law partner’s pension.
Line 11900 – Employment Insurance (EI) and Other Benefits: Benefits and assistance received from Employment Insurance (EI) and reported on T4E – Statement of Employment Insurance Benefits slip are entered here.
Line 12000 – Taxable Amount of Dividends from Canadian Corporations: If you own a share of a Canadian corporation or the whole corporation, and receive dividend income you report that income here. You may receive a T5 – Statement of Investment Income in Canada for this type of income.
Line 12100 – Interest and Other Investment Income: Although there a few types of slips that are entered on this line, the most common is the T3 – Statement of Trust Income Allocations and Designations.
Line 12200 – Net Partnership Income: Limited and Non-Active partners report their share of the net income from the T5013 – Statement of Partnership Income form here.
Line 12500 – Registered Disability Savings Plan Income: If you received income from a Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP), report the amount from box 131 of the T4A slip here.
Line 12600 – Rental income: If you receive income you receive from rental properties, the net amount is reported here.
Line 12700 – Taxable Capital Gains: If you profit from the sale of an investment or a property, the capital gains are included here. Any gains reported on a T5008 – Statement of Securities Transaction slip are reported here.
Line 12800 – Support Payments Received: This includes both child support and spousal support; but only the taxable amount is included here.
Line 12900 – RRSP Income: Income from the T4RSP – Statement of Registered Retirement Savings Plan Income slip is entered here.
Line 13000 – Other Income: This line covers other income that is not entered elsewhere on the tax return and may or may not be shown on a tax slip.
Line 13010 – Taxable Scholarship, Fellowships, Bursaries, and Artists’ Project Grants: The taxable portion of scholarships, prizes and awards is entered here.
Lines 13500 to 14300 – Self-Employment Income: If you earn business income, professional income, commission income, farming income or fishing income, report the net amount of your Self-Employment Income here. Note that T2125 informs these amounts.
Line 14700 – The total of these amounts is entered here:
- Line 14400 – Worker’s Compensation Benefits
- Line 14500 – Social Assistance
- Line 14600 – Net Federal Supplements
None of these sources of income should be accounted for twice in the total amount on Line 15000. Additionally, several of these sources of income require you to attach other forms (if you’re filing via mail) and schedules to support your claims.
Though it may seem like calculating your income can be challenging, by using software like TurboTax combined with the Auto-Fill My Return feature connecting directly to the CRA, these amounts will populate automatically, and in the right place in your T-slips.
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