The Saskatchewan Trucking Association is thrilled about a recent T4A reporting change issued by the Canada Revenue Agency.

After years of lobbying the CRA to make the adjustment, the STA says carriers will now be penalized if they don’t issue T4A slips for any service that exceeds $500.

Executive Director Susan Ewart explains that explains that until now, certain carriers across the country have been taking advantage of a lack of regulations by using the ‘Driver Inc.’ business model. This is where drivers are classified as independent contractors rather than employees and are often not given T4A slips in exchange for their services.

“If a driver uses your tools and your truck to do the job, they’re really considered an employee, and you should be issuing them a T4. What was happening was, all of these paid wages were going unreported.”

Because the CRA had a moratorium on penalties for this offence, they were getting away with it.

“If you have a company that’s subscribing to that Driver Inc. model, where they’re misclassifying those employees, they’re not remitting anything. No CPP, no EI, no income tax being deducted, no WCB premiums paid, and there’s billions of tax dollars lost every year.”

Because of this, she says this change was an important win for the industry, and the CRA has indicated penalties will be issued for carriers that don’t comply.

Ewart adds that the Driver Inc. model was hurting compliant and ethical Canadian carriers, and although this change will create some extra administrative work, she says the crackdown ensures everyone is operating on a level playing field.

Ewart doesn’t yet know what the penalties will be for noncompliant carriers, but she expects there will be a lot of audit work conducted in the trucking industry in 2026.