Everywhere else in Canada, provincial income tax is worked out on a form attached to the federal return, and the Canada Revenue Agency collects both. Quebec is the exception: its residents file a federal return with the Canada Revenue Agency and a separate Quebec return with Revenu Québec. The Quebec return has its own income, brackets, credits and minimum tax.
The federal return of a Quebec resident
The federal return is the same as everywhere, with two differences.
- The abatement. Federal tax is reduced by 16.5% of the tax otherwise payable: basic federal tax, or the minimum amount when minimum tax applies. The reduction is treated as tax already paid, so it can produce a refund. It exists because Quebec runs, and pays for, programs the federal government funds elsewhere.[1]
- Payroll credits. The credit for contributions is on the Québec Pension Plan, the lower Quebec EI premium and the Quebec parental insurance premium, not on CPP; see CPP and EI contributions.
The Quebec return
The Quebec return starts from the same income as the federal one, less the deduction for workers: 6% of employment and business income, at most $1,450.[2]
2026 Quebec brackets, on taxable income: 14% up to $54,345; 19% to $108,680; 24% to $132,245; 25.75% above.[3]
Credits are taken at 14%.[4]
- Basic personal amount: $18,952. There is no separate credit for pension, EI or parental insurance contributions on the Quebec return; the basic amount already allows for them.[5]
- Age, living alone and retirement income: $3,986 at 65 or over, $2,172 for a person living alone (or only with children under 18), and up to $3,541 on pension income. For a couple the two spouses' amounts are added together, reduced by 18.75% of the couple's combined net income over $42,955, and claimed once between them. Ontario reduces its age amount on each person's own income; Quebec reduces this one on the couple's.[6]
- No spouse amount. Instead, credits a spouse cannot use against their own Quebec tax are deducted from the other spouse's.[7]
- Dividends: a credit of 11.7% of the grossed-up eligible dividend and 3.42% of the grossed-up non-eligible one; see dividends.[8][9]
- Foreign tax: foreign tax the federal credit did not absorb, up to the foreign share of Quebec tax.[10]
Minimum tax is Quebec's own, not a share of the federal one: 19% of adjusted taxable income over $183,680, less 50% of the basic credits. A Quebec resident pays the greater of it and the regular tax.[11]
The Health Services Fund contribution takes the place of a health premium, and is charged only on income other than employment income: pensions, RRSP and RRIF withdrawals, interest, dividends as received, rent, business income and taxable capital gains, less RRSP and FHSA deductions. Nothing is due up to $18,500; then 1% of the excess, at most $150; above $64,355, $150 plus 1% of the excess, at most $1,000. Old Age Security is outside it.[12]
Where the law leaves a choice, the engine takes these conventions: the spouse with the higher Quebec net income claims the couple's age and retirement amounts, and what that spouse cannot use moves to the other;[13] a person without a spouse in the plan lives alone or only with minor children;[14] and adjusted taxable income for minimum tax is the federal one less the deduction for workers.[15]
What the planner does
The planner does not offer Quebec plans yet. The engine already works out both returns of a Quebec resident, for when it does.
What it does not do
A Quebec resident with a business establishment outside Quebec gets only part of the abatement; that case is not modelled. On the Quebec return, minimum tax is never carried to later years, the limit on investment expenses above investment income is not applied, the tuition credit and the disability and other-dependant amounts are left out, and a pension split applies to both returns even though Quebec allows it only from 65.