Getting Started

This introduction will guide you through the general flow of a payroll calculation in the Symmetry Tax Engine (STE).

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all STE functionality. Some elements of the engine will be glossed over for this introduction and will be covered in other articles in our Client Support Center.

As described in our introduction to basic concepts in the STE, the general flow of the engine has three main parts. Each of these will be covered in this guide:

1. Find applicable location codes
2. Find potentially applicable taxes
3. Calculate payroll taxes

Introducing our example employee

Throughout this introductory guide, we'll be navigating each of these sections using a hypothetical example employee named Astrid. She's just started a new job in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is receiving her first paycheck.

We'll need to first find applicable location codes for Astrid's home and work addresses, then find the federal and British Columbia taxes that are applicable for her and her employer for this pay period. Finally, we'll actually calculate those payroll taxes and figure out both Astrid's net pay and the amount that her employer will owe.

Finding applicable location codes

Before we can do anything else, we need to figure out the applicable location codes for Astrid. For Canada, the STE has one location code for each province, which is then used for all addresses within the province. Additionally, the location code of 80-000-0000 is used for all Canadian federal taxes.

If you're a currently licensed STE client, please read the following article for a list of applicable location codes for Canada: Canadian Location Codes

Since we need both federal and British Columbia taxes, we'll need to use the following two location codes:

• Federal: 80-000-0000
• British Columbia: 82-000-0000

👍

In summary, we now have location codes that represent Astrid's home and work addresses. We'll need these for all future steps in this tutorial!