@seethruhead/cra-payroll

Calculate Canadian payroll deductions using CRA's Payroll Deductions Online Calculator (PDOC).

Automates the CRA wizard via Puppeteer and returns your net pay, taxes, CPP, EI, and RRSP breakdown — per paycheck, monthly, or annually.

Requires Google Chrome — uses your system Chrome, no extra browser install needed.

Install

npm install -g @seethruhead/cra-payroll

Usage

# Interactive — prompts for missing values
cra-payroll

# CLI args
cra-payroll --salary 120000 --province "British Columbia"

# Per-paycheck table for the year (tracks CPP/EI maxout)
cra-payroll --salary 263000 --table

# Annual totals
cra-payroll --salary 100000 --annual

# Monthly averages
cra-payroll --salary 100000 --monthly

# Combine them
cra-payroll --salary 263000 --table --annual --monthly

Example output (--table)

Per-Paycheck Table (2026)
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  #  │     Gross │   Fed Tax │  Prov Tax │       CPP │        EI │   Net Pay │ Cum CPP/EI
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  1  │ 10,958.33 │  2,232.82 │  1,431.13 │    669.42 │    178.62 │  6,446.34 │    848.04
  2  │ 10,958.33 │  2,232.82 │  1,431.13 │    669.42 │    178.62 │  6,446.34 │  1,696.08
 ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ...
  7  │ 10,958.33 │  2,232.82 │  1,431.13 │    213.93 │     51.35 │  7,029.10 │  5,353.52 ← partial
  8  │ 10,958.33 │  2,232.82 │  1,431.13 │      0.00 │      0.00 │  7,294.38 │  5,353.52 ✓ maxed
 ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ... │       ...

Config

Create ~/.config/cra-payroll.json:

{
  "province": "Ontario",
  "annualSalary": 100000,
  "payPeriod": "Semi-monthly (24 pay periods a year)",
  "year": 2026,
  "rrspEmployeePercent": 4,
  "rrspEmployerPercent": 4
}

CLI args override config file values. Missing values are prompted interactively.

Options

| Option | CLI flag | Config key | Default | |--------|----------|------------|---------| | Province | -p, --province | province | Ontario | | Annual salary | -s, --salary | annualSalary | (prompted) | | Tax year | -y, --year | year | current year | | Pay period | --pay-period | payPeriod | Semi-monthly (24) | | Employee RRSP % | --rrsp-employee | rrspEmployeePercent | 4 | | Employer RRSP % | --rrsp-employer | rrspEmployerPercent | 4 | | CPP maxed | --cpp-maxed | cppMaxedOut | false | | EI maxed | --ei-maxed | eiMaxedOut | false | | Yearly table | -t, --table | — | false | | Annual totals | -a, --annual | — | false | | Monthly averages | -m, --monthly | — | false | | Verbose | -v, --verbose | — | false | | Headless | --headless | — | false | | Config path | -c, --config | — | — |

How it works

1. Launches your system Chrome via Puppeteer (headed by default — CRA blocks headless)
2. Fills out the PDOC wizard: province, pay period, salary, RRSP contributions
3. Sets CPP/EI status and hits Calculate
4. Scrapes the results page for taxes, deductions, and net pay
5. For --table mode: runs twice (with/without CPP/EI) and simulates each paycheck using the annual maximums

Standalone binary

If you prefer a standalone binary without Node.js, see the GitHub releases.

License

MIT