We generally start with your total gross earnings in the 12 months immediately before your injury. If you're self-employed and carry Personal Optional Protection (POP), we start with this POP amount.

We gather information about your personal situation to estimate how much tax you would pay on the Step 1 amount. To do this, we consider your allowable personal income tax credits and any relevant exemptions. These include tax credits for

• Basic personal amounts
• A spouse or eligible dependent(s) (We assume they have no income so you get the maximum credit.)
• An infirm dependent
• Your probable CPP contributions and EI premiums

Check your most recent tax assessment from Canada Revenue Agency. It should show your actual amounts for these credits.

Next, we subtract your estimated federal and provincial income taxes from your Step 1 amount. We also subtract your estimated CPP contributions and EI premiums, unless you are exempt or ineligible. None of these are payroll items that we cover or manage for you.

- Federal/provincial taxes
- CPP contributions
- EI premiums
= Your net annual earnings

We calculate your wage-loss rate. For most injured workers, the wage-loss rate is approximately 90 per cent of their net weekly earnings.

X 90%
= Your approximate weekly wage-loss rate

What's left is your net annual earnings. We divide that by 52.14, the exact number of weeks in a year, to get your net weekly earnings.

÷ 52.14 weeks
= Your net annual earnings