A business owner incorporates, files their first T2, and assumes corporate tax is straightforward: revenue minus expenses, apply the rate, pay the balance. By year three, the corporation has retained earnings, a shareholder loan, an equipment lease, and a dividend...
A business owner files their corporate return in June and discovers they owe $14,000 more than expected. The revenue was there. The deductions were available. But nobody planned for them during the year, so the filing was reactive: add up the numbers, calculate the...
A restaurant owner looks at a packed dining room on a Saturday night and assumes the business is doing well. Two months later, the books tell a different story: food costs crept above 35%, tip allocations were inconsistent across pay periods, and a late HST remittance...
A contractor finishes a $200,000 renovation, collects the final payment, and assumes the project was profitable. Three months later, an accountant pulls the numbers and discovers that material overruns, unbilled change orders, and missed HST remittances ate most of...
Commission income arrives in chunks. A strong quarter can bring in more than the previous three combined, and then nothing closes for six weeks. That rhythm makes bookkeeping for real estate agents different from almost every other self-employed profession. The...
