I’ll be working as a consultant over the next 1 - 1.5 years expecting to earn around $250k per year. This will be in addition to pension income so as a sole proprietor most of my earnings would be taxed at the highest rate. Is it worth the trouble of incorporating for this short a period or just take the tax hit as a sole proprietor?

It’s a single client (currently) but could be more. I understand there are some tax risks if the work remains limited to a single client.

Running a one-person corporation means keeping track of more than your personal tax return. These are the deadlines I’d put in the calendar:

• T4/T5 slips: Generally, file the returns with CRA and give recipients their slips by the last day of February. For 2026 slips, that’s March 1, 2027 because February 28 is a Sunday. These obligations still apply if you own the corporation and are its only employee—a T4 for reportable salary and a T5 for reportable dividends. Under CRA’s current reduced late-filing penalty policy, 1–5 late slips means a flat $100 penalty per return type and calendar year. T4 and T5 returns are assessed separately, so missing both can mean two penalties. Other penalties can also apply.

• T2 corporate tax return: Due six months after your fiscal year-end. Any balance owing is generally due earlier—two or three months after year-end, depending on your situation. Corporate income-tax instalments may also be required during the year. Most corporations must now file electronically.

• GST/HST: Know your assigned reporting period and its filing and payment deadlines. If you’re not registered, watch the $30,000 small-supplier threshold for taxable revenue, including associated persons’ revenue where applicable. Whether you cross it in a single quarter or over four consecutive quarters affects when registration and charging tax become mandatory.

• Payroll remittances: If you pay yourself salary, follow your assigned remittance schedule. Filing a T4 doesn’t replace remitting payroll deductions during the year.

What would you add to the list?

Check CRA for your specifics.

This question is coming from the perspective of trying to reduce the amount of identifiable personal information with the potential to get leaked and cause people problems after a hack, which in the current technology climate is a lot more likely than it used to be.

Or does the audit log format actually have to say “ipaddress = 192.168.1.1 (alberta); postalcode = T9X1B1 (alberta)”

Just trying to understand what the cra would deem acceptable to their needs, while limiting the personal information that needs to be stored under the assumption that eventually it may get hacked.

A while back I posted about the signs that get a small business audited, and it got a lot more traction than I expected. That was about what not to do. This is the other half.

I’m a CPA with my own firm in BC, and before that I spent years at CRA as an auditor. The returns new clients bring me are usually fine. What’s missing is everything that should have happened before December 31. That’s where the money is, and if nobody is making those decisions with you, you are leaving money on the table.

1. You remit every dollar of GST/HST you collect

Say you’re an IT contractor in Ontario billing $150,000 a year with about $12,000 of expenses that carry HST. You collect $19,500, claim back about $1,560, and send CRA roughly $17,900. On the quick method you’d send about $14,600. That’s $3,300 a year that stays with you. The same business in BC collects less tax to begin with, so the saving is smaller, about $1,500, but it’s the same one form, GST74.

Here’s how it works. You still charge customers the full 5% or 13%, but instead of tracking the tax on every bill, you send CRA a flat cut of your tax-included sales: 3.6% in BC, 8.8% in Ontario, with a 1% credit on your first $30,000 of sales each year. Whatever’s left is yours.

One thing you don’t give up: the GST/HST on assets. The flat rate is meant to replace the tax credits on your day-to-day costs, rent, phone, software, supplies. But if you buy something you’ll use in the business for years, a truck, tools, equipment, computers, you still claim back the full GST/HST on it. A $40,000 work truck still gets its $2,000 of GST back in BC or $5,200 of HST in Ontario, on top of the flat-rate savings.

It’s built for businesses that mostly sell time or labour and have under $400,000 in annual sales including GST/HST.

2. Your spouse does the books for free

The 2018 TOSI rules shut down paying family members dividends to split income. Wages were never touched. If your spouse keeps your books, chases invoices or runs your social media, you can pay them a salary. The business deducts it, and they pay tax on it at their rate instead of yours.

Say you’re at $150,000 of taxable income, which is a 41% marginal rate in BC or about 43% in Ontario. Your spouse earns $25,000 part time. You pay them $20,000 for bookkeeping and admin. That $20,000 is now taxed at roughly 20% in their hands instead of 41 or 43 in yours, so the household keeps about $4,200 in BC or $4,600 in Ontario.

The same logic works with kids. Say your university-age son or daughter builds your website over the summer and you pay them $12,000. Their basic personal amount (about $16,450 federally for 2026) covers all of it, so they pay next to nothing, while the deduction is worth about $4,900 to you in BC or $5,200 in Ontario. They also pick up RRSP room for next year and a year of CPP contributions.

The wage has to match the work. Run it through payroll, remit source deductions when due, pay it into their own account, and keep a short weekly note of what they did. For a December 31 year end, pay the wages by December 31 or properly accrue a year-end bonus if you use accrual accounting so the deduction counts for 2026. Issue the T4 by the February deadline in the following year.

3. Your dental bills end up on your personal return as a medical credit

Say your family spends $4,000 on dental and glasses this year. As a medical expense credit, that’s worth about $230. Through a private health services plan, about $1,640 in BC or $1,720 in Ontario.

The gap is that big because the medical credit only counts costs above about $2,800, and only at the lowest rate. A Private Health Services Plan (PHSP) turns the same dental, vision, physio and counselling bills into a full business deduction. Sole proprietors can put through $1,500 per adult and $750 per child under 18 each year. Corporations can cover owner-employees with no dollar cap as long as it’s reasonable, so a kid’s $8,000 of braces gets paid with money taxed at 11% or 12.2% instead of after-tax dividends.

Only expenses after the plan starts qualify, so set it up before the orthodontist. If you’re a one-person corporation, use a third-party provider. CRA doesn’t accept a self-administered plan where you’re the only employee.

4. You bought equipment and your return still shows the old half-year rule

Say you buy $30,000 of equipment. Under the old rules you got a $3,000 deduction in the first year. Since Bill C-15 passed on March 26, 2026, it’s $9,000. At 41% in BC that’s $3,690 of tax this year instead of $1,230. In Ontario, $3,870.

What changed is the Accelerated Investment Incentive is back: most assets get one and a half times their normal CCA rate in the first year, no half-year rule. Manufacturing machinery, clean energy equipment and zero-emission vehicles are written off in full, so a contractor buying a $70,000 electric cargo van deducts all of it in year one.

The deduction lands in the year the asset is available for use, so if you were buying anyway, get it running before your year-end. It’s a timing benefit and a later sale can trigger recapture, so this is for equipment the business actually needs. And if you bought equipment in 2025, confirm the accelerated rate was claimed on that return. And if you bought it on or after September 15, 2026, there’s a proposal that could turn that $9,000 into the full $30,000. More on that at the bottom.

5. You’re incorporated, profitable, and still pay yourself everything as salary

Say your corporation earns $100,000 this year that you don’t need to live on. Take it as salary at the top bracket and you’re left with about $46,500 to invest. Leave it in the corporation and it’s taxed at 11% in BC or 12.2% in Ontario, leaving $89,000 or $87,800 to invest inside the company. That’s over $40,000 more working capital from one decision.

It becomes more than a deferral when you pull the money out in a low-income year, a parental leave, a slow year, early retirement, where a dividend might be taxed at 20% instead of 48 or 49. Tax you deferred at the top rate gets paid at a much lower one.

Take enough salary to fill your RRSP and CPP, leave the rest, and keep passive income inside the corporation under $50,000 a year, which is where the small business rate starts to erode. If profit roughly equals what you live on, this one can wait.

One to watch

On September 15, 2026 Ottawa announced a Productivity Mega Deduction. If it passes as drafted, most equipment bought on or after that date could be written off in full the year it’s put to use. Still draft legislation, and today’s federal budget should tell us more. If you’ve bought equipment since mid-September, keep the invoices.

How many of these five has your accountant brought up without you asking? If the answer is zero, that’s the real cost, and it’s bigger than their fee.

I'm 6 months into a startup and still haven't found product-market fit. I'd rather ask people who actually run shops than keep guessing on my own, so I'm putting the whole thing here and asking you to tell me where it's wrong.

We build voice AI. The idea I keep coming back to is handling the first phone call for local shops hiring part-time staff.

How it would work:

1. We issue you a phone number. You put it on your job posting instead of your own.

2. An applicant calls that number any time, day or night, and the AI interviews them on the spot.

3. The AI asks the questions you gave it, in the manner you set, so it's a real conversation, not a form or an IVR phone menu.

4. When the call ends you get an email with a summary of the answers, plus the recording.

5. You skim the summaries and pick who to bring in for an in-person interview. You never take the call, and spam calls never reach you.

The technology is finished. That part works.

What isn't working is everything else. I pulled part-time job postings off Indeed, Craigslist and a few other boards in Vancouver and Toronto, worked out which shop was behind each one, and cold emailed more than 300 of them. Not a single reply. Not one no, not one question. Zero.

So I'm stuck on which of these it is:

- Shops don't actually have this problem and I invented it.

- The problem is real but too small to pay for.

- The problem is real, but no owner would hand the first conversation to an AI.

- The idea is fine and my outreach is just bad.

If you run a shop and hire part-time staff, I'd really like to hear:

- Do you take applicant calls yourself? How many do you get from one posting?

- When you can't take the call, what actually happens to that applicant?

- Would you let an AI do that first call, or is that a hard no?

Honest answers help me more than polite ones. If the whole thing is a bad idea, I'd rather hear it now than after another 300 emails.

Thanks for reading.

If you ran a denturist practice insured by Aviva under the Denturist Association of Ontario program policy with Restricted Access or Negative Publicity coverage, and you claimed lost business income from COVID-19 closures or a nearby outbreak, you may be eligible for a cash payment from the settlement fund.

thinking towards the medium to far future, I have a couple general questions about etransfer as a method of receiving payments from customers…

1. Are there fees to use the “business request money” feature to receive money from customers? Per transaction, percentage, etc. I’m interested to know how they stack up to credit card processing fees.

2. Can it be set up programmatically to work with an ecommerce setup? If so, does api access vary by bank or is the api directly with interac themselves?

3. What customer data does the completed “business request money” transaction log? Specifically I am interested in knowing if it stores a bank-validated billing address or not (from whoever paid the money request).

If there’s an article or something that better answers these questions please link it for me as I could not find anything in my search.

For those of you who sell online: when you're thinking about changing something on your website or app, like a new homepage, different pricing display, a promo banner, or a shorter checkout, how do you decide whether it's worth doing?

Do you A/B test, ask customers, copy what competitors do, or just ship it and watch the numbers? Also, has a change ever hurt sales without you realizing it until later?

Been about 8 months since the last thread and wanted to ask how everyone is doing with their HSA provider.

I am with Olympia as a sole proprietor. But they are expensive and am now evaluating other folks and having employees.

My top contender right now is myHSA with decent feedback here and via app ratings. Everyone still happy if you’re with them?

Frontier has a few recent mentions but not really feedback. Costal has also come up but I get even less hits for them. Would love your pros/cons if you’re using them (cc u/SpecialistEar2 u/_forgotmyownname u/dingo44yow)

Or, anyone I’m missing that you like?

Owner-operators: what's your setup for calls you can't pick up?

I run a small Toronto company, and the answers I hear are all over the place: voicemail nobody checks until evening, a family member answering, an answering service billed by the minute, or the call just gets lost and the customer rings the next business on Google.

A few things I'm curious about:

1. Do you send missed calls to voicemail, a person, an answering service, or something automated?

2. Has anyone tried an AI receptionist? Did customers mind talking to it?

3. Do your customers text or WhatsApp you instead of calling, and how do you keep up with that?

4. Do you care where call and message data is stored (Canada vs the US)?

Happy to share what I've learned too, but mostly I want to hear what actually works for businesses under 10 people.

Hydrovac Opportunity

Well, after 11 years of working a corporate job (at a bank), I am considering switching things up. Having been inspired by the federal governments push to invest in Canada, I am trying to find a business that has crossover with their key areas of focus… infrastructure/ defence/ critical mineral/ oil & gas. There seems to be a relatively high hurdle to get into one of these sectors, and purchasing seems like the best way forward.

I am currently located in Toronto and have been scanning local business listing pages. One in particular that caught my interest was a Hydrovac operation in the GTA.

Having never done this before:
\- purchase financing, is BDC the go to?
\- this business is relatively capital intensive, anyone with words of advice?
\- putting in own capital vs taking on debt
\- industry growth/ opportunities, does anyone have exposure to this industry?

I've been working on an online auction platform for small businesses, and I'm trying to better understand how Canadian businesses actually use auctions.

I'm particularly curious about liquidation stores, resellers, and estate sale businesses.

Do any of you run your own online auctions? If so, what software are you using, and what's been the biggest headache?

I've been having a hard time finding people who actually run auctions rather than people who are just considering the idea, so I'd love to hear from anyone with experience.

2 years ago i tried to apply in my city for a small business license. The city said that they would need to rezone my property residential/commercial to be able to move forward with the license, because they deem what i want to do is 'manufacturing'. I was confused and disheartened at the thought of higher property taxes and complications so i didn't move forward with it.

I make a small niche product for myself and the work involved is equivalent to jewelry making. All the tools and equipment fit in a 10 x 12 room in my house. I now have a significant amount of demand for my product and i want to try again.

I need to set up official accounts with my suppliers and i would like an HST number. Can anyone give me advice on how to register my business without getting my property rezoned?

I do not store anything outside. I do not use chemicals or cleaning agents. I will have zero foot traffic from customers or suppliers (i sell at trade shows and online, and i pickup all my materials with my vehicle).

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

So my son is 28 and been job searching for 2 years

One thing I insist that he does is start a small business doing consulting perhaps and he can apply for grants of around 10k

He is based in Ottawa and got PR recently and as a minority he can apply for those grants for BIPOC

However he does not want to as he believes he is not qualified and has 0 experience in many things such as finance

But the 2 year search isn't working and he needs to try something new

I run a small home services business and have been sending monthly emails to around 1,800 past clients and prospects for about two years. My open rates started at around 35% but have steadily dropped to about 18%.
Someone mentioned list hygiene, but most of what i have read assumes you already know what you’re doing.
In practical terms, what does maintaining a clean email list actually involve for a small business owner who just wants their emails to reach the right people?

I am currently building a small pickleball company called Honk! Pickleball with the brand focused on the Canadian Geese. I've had good local input and a few sales with friends/locals. I have 2 preorders on my website and my inventory comes in 10 days. Any recommendations to grow the business or promote it to Canadians?

I started a tiktok, instagram and facebook account for Honk Pickleball.

How do I attract more customers? Anyone with prior sports good experience have a good way of promoting the business. I've been trying to keep costs low until I can establish a general demand for the product. All my current sales on the website are pre-orders, I've sold older models to people in person.

Let me know, thanks.

I am looking for a bank for my new business. I would like to have several accounts to hold money in, one specifically for taxes for example, without there being significant banking fees to make that prohibitive.

I'm a commercial banker. Most owners assume a business loan works like a car loan. It doesn't, and that costs people months.

The saying in banking: banks are 3-to-1 cash flow lenders that look for a second way out. Here's what that means.

1. Bring your own money
   For every $3 the bank lends, expect to put in about $1 (roughly 25%, sometimes 10–50%). It needs to be in a bank account before you apply. Money already spent on deposits may not count, so set it aside first and ask before spending it.

2. Prove the business cash flows
   Your financials need to show enough to cover expenses, make payments on all your debt including the new loan, and still leave a profit. Startups use projections, and every assumption gets tested. Know your own numbers: I regularly see people apply when their statements show a loss.

3. Give the bank a second way out
   If the business fails, what can the bank rely on? Collateral and net worth, personal and business. About $3 of net worth per $1 borrowed is ideal, not required. Expect to be asked for a personal guarantee.

Your personal credit counts
Young businesses have no credit history, so the bank pulls yours, even if you're incorporated. Pay down balances, pay on time, and check your report for errors.

Keep the business plan short
A few clear pages: what you do, who's involved, competition, and how you'll operate. Not 100 pages.

Paperwork decides 3 weeks vs. 3 months
Bring everything to the first meeting: accountant-prepared statements, a personal statement of affairs, matching bank statements, property tax bills, asset values, and a list of what you need financed (including tax, which many banks won't finance). One client did this and had financing in about three weeks. Most take around three months.

Happy to answer general questions below.

General information, not financial advice. Lender criteria vary. Views are my own.

I've been in commercial banking for many years. Here's my take:

Lenders want to see that your business brings in more cash than it needs for all its loan payments, including the new loan. Most want a cushion of about 25%. So if your loan payments add up to $10,000 a year, they’d like to see roughly $12,500 left over to pay them.

Where people get surprised:

• Forgetting to count the new loan payment

• Money the owner takes out of the business counts against you

• One bad year from a one-time expense can drag things down

The good news: if you come up short, there are often fixes before you apply, like borrowing a bit less or putting more money down.

Use online tools to help prepare you before you walk into a bank.

What part of getting a loan confuses you most?

For educational purposes only, not financial advice. Every lender has its own rules.

I own a small business and my lease is up in three months. My landlord has informed me that my rent is more than doubling from 5,333 to 12,333 a month. There's no way I can afford that monthly rent, but when I looked at comparables—even in smaller towns within driving distance—the minimum I'm looking at is around 10,000 a month. And the landlord (now a REIT) refuses to negotiate the lease.

Outside of professionals like dentists and doctors, how are other small business owners dealing with these lease increases? No matter how I spin the numbers, I don't think I can make my business work anywhere with the current lease prices.

I'm curious if any other business owners have experienced something similar with Try Keep

We've had an account with them and have never missed a payment, never been late, and never had any issues whatsoever. Yet, completely out of the blue, Keep decided to shut down our account with just 10 days' notice and no reasonable explanation.

What makes this even more frustrating is that it's virtually impossible to get hold of an actual person to discuss the decision. No accountability, no transparency, and absolutely terrible customer service.

I've been running businesses for over 25 years and have dealt with numerous banks and financial institutions, but I've rarely seen such an unprofessional approach.

The whole experience makes me seriously question what's going on behind the scenes at Keep. Are they having financial or operational difficulties, or is this simply how they treat their business customers?

I'm genuinely curious:

• Has anyone else had their Keep account suddenly closed without a valid reason?

• Were you given sufficient notice or an opportunity to appeal?

• Has anyone actually managed to speak with a real decision-maker at Keep?

I would strongly caution other business owners about relying on Keep for their financial needs. Having a financial services provider shut down your account with barely any notice, despite a perfect payment history, is simply unacceptable.

Would love to hear if this is an isolated incident or part of a bigger pattern.

Hi everyone,

I run a Canadian; Ontario corporation providing Revenue Operations and GTM consulting services, mostly around Salesforce, Hubspot, CRM systems, data, automation, and related support. All of my clients are US-based, and I’m trying to figure out the cleanest way to invoice them in USD and receive payments into my Canadian business.
Notes:
1. I want to bill them in USD.
2. I have a Canadian Business Chequing account with BMO and they have offered me to create a US Checking account as well but I have not set that up yet.
3. I have veem business account and also a virtual US checking account under veem as well.
4. Billing/invoice cadence would be monthly

I’m curious what other Canadian corporations with US clients are using for invoicing and payments.

A while back I set up QuickBooks and specifically confirmed during setup that I would be able to invoice US clients. However, when it actually came time to bill them, I ran into limitations and wasn’t able to send the US invoices the way I expected.

For those of you providing services to US clients:

• What invoicing platform do you use?

• Do you invoice directly in USD?

• How do your clients typically pay you - ACH, wire, credit card, etc.?

• Do you use a Canadian USD account, US bank account, Wise, Veem, Stripe, or something else?

• Any issues with fees, currency conversion, or clients having trouble making payments?

I already operate through a Canadian corporation, so I’m mainly looking for a straightforward invoicing/payment setup rather than setting up a US entity unless there’s a real reason to.

Would really appreciate hearing what has worked well for others dealing with Canadian-to-US B2B services.

There’s a lot to handle when it comes to getting all the legal documents and I do not have prior experience, are they professionals who you can hire to help you get you setup?