Finances

Financial support/stipends

Adequate financial support is a requirement for postdoctoral registration, and postdoctoral scholars must be assured of adequate financial support, other than from personal means, for the duration of their postdoctoral training appointment with the university. Postdoctoral stipend support can be assembled from various sources (external or internal). Postdoctoral Scholars can secure funding themselves from external funding agencies or fellowship programs, or may be offered funding from their supervisor’s grant or research resources. For more information, please see Ensuring adequate financial support.

Payment of stipends

Postdoc registration and appointment for payroll purposes are separate processes. It is the sole responsibility of the department/research unit to process appointment forms of newly-registered and continuing postdocs to ensure the payment of stipends. Please see Appointment for payroll purposes for more information.

Taxes

As of January 2010, all postdoctoral fellowships (sometimes called “stipends” by researchers at McGill) are taxable according to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Following CRA regulations, the University must deduct applicable federal income taxes from each payment to the postdoctoral fellow, and will not issue T2202A forms to postdoctoral fellows. 

For federal income tax, postdoctoral fellowships are reported as scholarship income on T4A income tax slips, which postdocs must include with their federal income tax declarations. Postdoctoral fellows are responsible for declaring postdoctoral fellowships for federal tax purposes and for the payment of any income tax owing to the Canada Revenue Agency. Please visit the Canada Revenue Agency website for more information concerning federal income tax related to scholarship and fellowships and federal taxation rates.

Postdoctoral fellows who receive income from the university in addition to a postdoctoral fellowship may want to review their personal federal tax credits and update their records accordingly (contact the HR Service Centre at 514-398-4747 for more information). 

For Provincial income tax, postdoctoral fellowships are reported as scholarship income to Revenu Québec on a Relevé 1 income tax slip, coded “RB” (i.e. «revenu de bourse» or scholarship income). Please see the Revenu Québec website for more information. 

McGill is not authorized to provide advice on income tax matters to individual postdoctoral fellows or comment on individual tax declarations or tax files. Any individual requiring tax information or advice is urged to consult their personal tax advisors.

Deadlines

Deadlines for filing tax returns are April 30th of each year for the previous fiscal year.

Printing your tax slips

Postdocs paid by McGill University:

Postdocs not paid by McGill University:

  • Contact your employer to obtain your tax slips.

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License.
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, McGill University.

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