The Act to promote workforce skills development and recognition (the “Act”) primarily targets an employer whose payroll for a calendar year exceeds the amount set by government regulation, which is $2,000,000 for the year 2023 (the “Subject Employer”).
Under the Act, every Subject Employer is required to participate in the development of their workforce’s skills by allocating at least 1% of their payroll to eligible training expenses.
Furthermore, annually, and until January 1, 2024, Employers subject to the Act were required to produce a declaration of training activities (the “DTA”). This obligation was in addition to the numerous administrative responsibilities of employers.
More specifically, the Subject Employer had to declare their list of eligible training conducted during the year. In addition, for each training, they had to detail the eligible training activity, record the cost, and payroll expenses. This is a non-exhaustive list of what was required to be declared by the Subject Employer.
The purpose of this DTA was to enable the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail to compile data related to workforce training, in particular to make decisions on financial assistance measures to be granted to subject companies.
However, in an effort to lighten the administrative burden on businesses, the Quebec legislature adopted the Act to amend various legislative provisions mainly for the purpose of reducing red tape (the “Amending Act”). This latter directly impacts the obligation of Subject Employers to produce a DTA.
Indeed, having come into effect on January 1, 2024, Article 130 of the Amending Act repeals Article 3 of the Regulation respecting eligible training expenditures, which until recently required Subject Employers to provide an annual DTA.
The Amending Act thus ends the obligation of Subject Employers to produce a DTA. The DTA completed in 2023 for the data relating to the year 2022 will have been the last.
However, Subject Employers still have the obligation to allocate at least 1% of their payroll to the development of their workforce’s skills through eligible training.
Also, Subject Employers must continue to annually produce the declaration relating to payroll and eligible training expenses to Revenu Québec.
We are, of course, available to answer your questions regarding these obligations and to assist you in your administrative procedures in order to comply with the requirements of the Act.
We invite you to contact members of our team for more information on this subject.
