International Financial Centre (IFC) Regime

ORIGINAL TEXT IN FRENCH

INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRE (IFC) REGIME

ANNUAL APPLICATION FOR AN ELIGIBILITY CERTIFICATE REGARDING AN EMPLOYEE

GENERAL INFORMATION

IFC Regime (November 2013) MFQ [DEMcert-AppCFI-F] 2003V1 2 General information

PROCEDURE The holder of an IFC qualification certificate may apply to the Minister of Finance and the Economy of Québec for the issue, in respect of one of its employees for a calendar year, of a certificate required for the purpose of obtaining one of the above-mentioned tax benefits. To apply, simply complete the form Document II: Information concerning the employee. The Minister must receive the application no later than February 28, 2014. An employee or the holder of the IFC qualification certificate, as the case may be, may receive a tax benefit if he encloses the certificate issued to him by the Minister with his Québec income tax return, and if he satisfies the other conditions stipulated in sections II and III of chapter V of the Act respecting international financial centres.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETING THE FORMS

1. Annual application for an eligibility certificate regarding an IFC employee - Document I: Information concerning the IFC.  General information on the IFC. It also contains the list of documents required to process the application. This document must be completed using word processing software.

2. Annual application for an eligibility certificate regarding an IFC employee - Document II: Information concerning the employee.  This document must be completed using word processing software for each employee for whom a certificate application is filed.  The period covered by the certificate application can be less than the calendar year if the employee, during the year, commenced employment, left employment, or carried out other duties outside the IFC.  A detailed description of the employee's duties must be provided in section 5 of the form. Additional information can be supplied on a separate appendix if the space provided is insufficient.  The IFC must keep records such that the time devoted by each employee to the various activities of the IFC can be checked.

SIGNATURES  The employee must sign and date his annual eligibility certificate application form.  The head of the IFC must sign and date the form Document I: Information concerning the IFC and Document II: Information concerning the employee, for each employee.

IFC Regime (November 2013) i General information EMPLOYEES COVERED  Local employee  Foreign specialist

PERIOD ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS JANUARY 1, 2013 TO DECEMBER 31, 2013

Local employee At least 75% of his duties with the IFC are devoted to the execution of QIFTs. The duties of an employee are devoted to the execution of QIFTs when they are directly attributable to the specific transactional process of a given QIFT. Accordingly, duties that do not satisfy these requirements, such as corporate management, finance, accounting, taxation, legal affairs, marketing, communications, reception, secretariat, courier, computer systems, human and physical resources management, do not constitute eligible duties for the partial tax holiday for IFC employees.

Foreign At least 75% of his duties are devoted to the operations of an IFC and, specialist 1 immediately before entering into a contract of employment or taking up employment, he was not a resident of Canada, for the purposes of the tax laws.

PARTIAL PERIOD TAX JANUARY 1, 2013 TO DECEMBER 31, 2013 EXEMPTION

Local employee Following the changes to the IFC regime (former IFC program) in the March 30, 2010 Budget Speech, a local employee may claim an annual deduction of 10% of his employment income. The amount of the deduction cannot exceed $13 333 on an annual basis.

PARTIAL TAX EXEMPTION

Foreign In calculating all his income, a foreign specialist may claim, for a period of five specialist years, a deduction whose annual rate varies as follows: 100% the first two years, and 75%, 50% and 37.5% respectively the following three years.

IFC Regime (November 2013) ii General information

FEES FOR ISSUING THE ANNUAL ELIGIBILITY CERTIFICATE REGARDING THE EMPLOYEE

The corporation or partnership operating the IFC must pay the fees required to examine an annual eligibility certificate application by enclosing with its application a cheque made out to the Minister of Finance of Québec. The fee schedule applicable to applications received by the MFEQ can be viewed at the following address: www.mfeq.gouv.qc.ca/inst-fin-en.asp. If a number of certificate applications are submitted at the same time, please enclose a single cheque for the total required fee.

ANNUAL IFC CONTRIBUTION FEE At the same time, the corporation or partnership operating the IFC must pay its annual contribution to the Fonds du centre financier de Montréal for 2013. For the first year, this contribution is $10 000 and is $3 000 for subsequent years. It must be paid with a cheque made out to the Minister of Finance of Québec, payable no later than February 28, 2014. To obtain further information on certificate applications or the general eligibility conditions for tax benefits relating to the IFC program, contact:

Ministère des Finances et de l’Économie du Québec Gestion des mesures relatives aux CFI 380, rue Saint-Antoine Ouest, bureau 6100 Montréal (Québec) H2Y 3X7 Telephone : 514 499-6569 Fax : 514 873-3915 Email : [email protected] Website : www.mfeq.gouv.qc.ca/inst-fin-en.asp

Note: The masculine form used herein covers both men and women.

DISCLAIMER

The information in this publication is provided for information purposes only and in no way establishes entitlement to any tax benefit relating to the international financial centres program.

IFC Regime (November 2013) iii