Canadians and taxes ( > $100,000 a year online salary )
 

What do you guys do? do you pay your taxes or get away without paying a dime until canada gets laws like the US for money made online?

last thing i want to do is like pay 40% of my cash to taxes lol

Shelter your earnings under a corporation. Corporate income taxes are just around 21% until you hit 200k.

WG

write-offs are extremely important. you need a very good accountant, who is both careful, yet creative. i'm very close to mine ;)

After my audit, I know have my accountants cell and home number. I'm sure he's loving the amount of business that audit brought in :)

WG

Online revenue? Taxable income?

What's taxes?:angel

I hate fucking taxes, getting my s-corp set up next week if the name isn't taken. Still going to owe a ton for this year though. Even with some decent write offs.

Setup some companies and start floating money around in them and only pay yourself break evens. Then get some write-offs (house as an office, car for business, etc). It ain't brain surgary

wired guy and quiet have the right idea...also, when one of your companies approaches 200k, make another one!

Move offshore to a tax free country and a tropical paradise like I plan to do :P

The CCRA has a list of directors of each company. Owning multiple companies won't get you around the small business deduction by spreading it among multiple companies unless you put someone else on the board of directors instead. I've tried :)

WG

I declare every dime, including money earned through PayPal.

I keep every receipt & try to cover every angle for write-offs, but it's not worth the risk to sneak income through your Canadian bank accounts without declaring it. By the time you deduct a portion of your mortgage, convention expenses etc., you're paying a hell of a lot less tax than you would at a regular job.

damn...so much for that plan!

ok then...go with that tropical island thing.

Do yourself a favour if you are making 6 figures.. get an ACCOUNTANT.

You won't pay anywhere near 40% taxes and you won't be doing anything wrong.

I have a fairly sweet setup now myself... :winkwink:

Very very smart move to make.

i was gonna say get payments thru epassporte and declare it at ur own risk.

nothing big tho. a few k's over a years time.

It's 18.1% in Nova Scotia up to 250k, and slightly higher (mid 20's) on the margin up to 350k, as I recall.

Plus, any business expenses, say like buying computer parts, are direct expense off the top of income... and GST/PST/HST (whatever applies in your area) can be reclaimed. Out here, it's like getting any biz-related items at a 33% discount. Travel too. :1orglaugh

If you happen to have a home office, you can also write off a big chunk of your monthly household operation as a business expense as well. Have high-speed net to the home? Need it for biz? It's an expense. A portion of rent, power, heat, phones, all of it. If you happen to have a cel, you can probably also legitimately claim you use that primarily for business too. Any LD charges made on your lines, etc etc etc. The writeoff potential is limitless.

Own a vehicle? Put it on the corporate side and suddenly all expenses in the operation (gas, oil changes, etc) are corporate. As an individual you'll be charged a certain amount of tax for the pleasure of using that corporate vehicle, but it's typically worth the time. Ask your accountant if the dollars work out in your favour... chances are they will.

... and if that wasn't enough, with the 25k/year personal tax free dividend and a couple family members as shareholders in the company and taxes end up not nearly the nasty bugbear they usedta be in the non-incorporated days. :thumbsup

were you hidding some revenues..? and if so... what kind of penality did you get..?

Never did, have been always 100% legit. The only thing the government had on me was too many conventions and some expenses were not of a business nature. In the end, I learnt the hard way you can only write off 2 conventions per year. No fines were enstated, about 10k of declined expenses and interest since they were incurred. More or less a slap on the wrist. When the audit first started, the CCRA wanted nearly 70k. Settled for under 15% of their original claims after I had my law firm step in.

WG

I would like the torpics!!!!!!!:thumbsup

Hmmm... that sucks. I've never tried to write off more than 2 conventions in a year so I haven't been bit with that one. Is that a documented limit CCRA has, or just something that came out in the course of the audit that "You really shouldn't aughta do more than 2 a year or they'll get pissy"?

it's a limit, according to my accountant.

Methinks my accountant and I are going to have a chat about this next time I talk to him. Don't want to trip over that one.

Any of you ever notice that Canadian webmasters lie and bullshit alot?

:smokin

alot of good info in this thread

It's a limit documented in the Income Tax Act under subsection 10. Yeah, they actually brought it to my office to show me because I couldn't believe 2 was the limit. As a result, all conventions are now called business meetings.

WG

There's differential between convention and business meeting? Heh, wacky CCRA.

That is one thing I'll be asking about though... for example, if I do the Vegas and Miami shows, plus have a trip to TO and LA, maybe Vancouver all in one year, am I going to get spanked for that? Gotta find that shit out. :(

You should see their definition of conventions. Other companies have taken the CCRA to court over the exact wording from various dictionaries. They have this fancy definition which covers inclusion of business scope, territorial jurisdiction and the whole works. Quite honestly, its pretty funny to see the CCRA trying to justify these things with a straight face.

From my accountant's perspective, the CCRA spent several weeks investigating my company and the convention claim is usually a last resort to decline expenses when they can't find any other claims. Considering they spent so much time on my company, they had to justify their time with something and the convention claim is what they usually do. He's seen at least a dozen companies get convention expenses declined and almost all of them were BS. But what are you going to do, take the CCRA to court over a couple grand or just pay the small penalty and move on...

WG

I just re-read my post and realized the CCRA's business model resembles that of Acacia quite a bit :)

WG

LOL... I was just about to say "Ah well, price of doing business" and just had a flashback to all those guys saying the same thing about Acacia. :winkwink:

As much as the situ may suck, its their job to try to take as much money from us as legally possible and it's our job to keep as much money from them as legally possible. At least, unlike Acacia, we (allegedly) get health care and paved roads when we give our money to CCRA. :thumbsup

But you need to pay additional taxes whenever you decide to use the money (salary)for everything that is not business related...

Btw.. anyone know if buying a condo for exemple can be viewed as a business investement for the company ..?

i could check how much your company made and paid in taxes :)

awesome thread :) :thumbsup

just move to the bahamas

We have a CGA and a book keeper on staff, we're obviously on the up and up with taxes (however sometimes those offshore accounts seem so appealing!). LOL!

I would suggest you take the time to go talk to a certified tax accountant about your business. Here is the reason why, he/she can help you now with getting your business set up best for tax purposes. There are lots of ways to legally pay as little tax as possible and not have to worry about Canada Revenue breathing down your neck.

I personally like to sleep at night ;)

DH

you can put me on the board, i don't mind

So are you currently earning more than $100,000 a year and not paying anything in tax?

If so, prepare to get a goatse size ass raping from the CCRA.

Judging by your post, it looks like you assume Canadians don't have to pay taxes on money made online, which isn't true.

make friends with your accountant..dont be afraid to cut a nice check to them...they will save you much more.

you should always pay for the services you need most, and that is one of them. dont cheap out at H&R block..lol

:thumbsup

So you are opened up to a lawsuit should one be brought upon one of WG's companies?

Actually since a corporation is a business entity, you wouldn't be responsible for it's debts.... so you aren't opened up for any personal lawsuits.

If it was unincorporated then it's a whole different story

Auditors gone wild :)
WG

All you guys are talking out of your ass and taking risks.

Money you make in the US has to be declared just like money you make here. Online or not.

Wired Guy, please hit me up on ICQ

7508777

if i don't do anything wrong i'm in the clear. how many enron board members were charged? it was the execs who got dinged

I'm on your ICQ, just hit me up.