Articles & Resources
Vickie Nakagama
It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we share the passing of Vickie Nakagama on November 25, 2025 after a prolonged illness. Her family had a private memorial service on Sunday, November 30th. Vickie was an excellent employee, but more than that, an exceptional person. We will miss her more than words can…
Receiving CRA Correspondence through Mail
To receive paper mail from the Canada Revenue Agency, you must change your correspondence preference to “paper mail” through your CRA account, as paper mail is no longer the default for new and existing business accounts. For individuals, you can update your preference in My Account, while businesses must use Canada.ca Form RC681-Request to Activate…
New Trust Reporting Requirements
Good afternoon: You may have already heard about the new Trust reporting requirements that have been in the news recently. You may have a trust relationship which you may not be aware of, and these trust returns are due by March 30, 2024. Please click on this link for details: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/trust-administrators/t3-return/new-trust-reporting-requirements-t3-filed-tax-years-ending-december-2023.html It is important that you…
What you need to know about the Underused Housing Tax(UHT)
You may have already heard about the Underused Housing Tax that was recently announced. Please click on this link for details: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/excise-taxes-duties-and-levies/underused-housing-tax.html#1. It is important that you review this information. If you are an affected owner of a residential property in Canada on December 31, 2022 you will have to file an Underused Housing Tax return due…
A Brief Summary of Tax and Economic Platforms for the Major Parties
Following is a summary of the various tax (and some relevant economic) policies put forward by the 3 largest parties running in the 2021 Canadian federal election. This is intended to provide a brief overview only. If you have questions about the specifics of any of the following, please contact a representative of the party.…
Holding Corporations
Holding corporations are used to achieve certain tax and/or legal benefits. They can be introduced into the corporate structure at anytime. So, what is a holding corporation? A holding corporation (hereafter “holdco”) is a regular corporation that is placed between the individual shareholder(s) and the operating corporation(s) (“opco”). Simplified, the individual owns shares of the…
Employee Versus Contractor: Part 4 (Personal Services Business)
Part 4: What if a Corporation is an Employee Back in Part 2 of Employee Versus Contractor, we mentioned that if an employee tries to incorporate, that they are assessed as a Personal Services Business (or “PSB”). Let’s take a look at what this means The CRA often refers to PSBs as “incorporated employees”. Essentially,…
Employee Versus Contractor: Part 3
Part 3: What are the Impacts to the Payer? Here we are specifically going to explore why a payer may intentionally want to pay a worker in a specific way. Usually, a payer would prefer to pay their workers as if they were independent contractors. Why is this? The payer does not need to calculate,…
Employee Versus Contractor: Part 2
Part 2: How is it Different for the Worker? In this entry of our series on exploring the difference between employees and contractors, we are going to explore some of differences that the worker experiences. The simplest way to do this is to compare the two of them side by side: Employee Independent Contractor At…
Employee Versus Contractor: Part 1
Part 1: Determining the Difference This is an oft asked and fought over question. Deciding if an individual providing services is doing so as an employee or as a contractor is not dependent on what the payer or the worker *wants*, but on the *facts* of the situation. This is critical to realize! It means…