Are Christmas bonuses taxed the same way as regular pay for payroll deduction purposes?

Yes, largely. A cash Christmas or holiday bonus is payroll income, and it's generally subject to the same source deductions as your regular pay — income tax withholding, CPP contributions, and EI premiums. Once it's paid to you in cash, it doesn't become a tax-free gift just because of the timing or the holiday label attached to it, which is a common misconception.

This is a meaningfully different situation from the more favourable treatment CRA allows for certain modest non-cash gifts and awards. That administrative accommodation is specifically about genuinely non-cash items given under certain conditions, not about cash bonuses labelled as holiday gifts. A cash bonus, however festive the occasion, is treated as ordinary payroll income for deduction purposes, full stop.

Employers sometimes try to soften a cash bonus by calling it a "gift," but that label doesn't change how it's taxed if it's actually paid in cash — the substance of the payment, not what it's called, determines its tax treatment. If your employer wants to give something that could actually qualify for more favourable, non-cash gift treatment, it needs to be a genuinely non-cash item structured to meet CRA's specific conditions, not a cash bonus rebranded for the season.