Top 5 Tax Tips for Self-employed

[Tsveta]

Top 5 Tax Tips for Self-employed

1. Get a good help- whether this is an accountant or somebody familiar with the subject.
2. Set up an RRSP – the allowance you contribute is tax free
3. Deduct child care costs and medical expenses -
4. Office expense – if you have separate office or you are using part of your house deduct this percentage off your monthly payments.
5. Keep good records – save all your receipts and use some simple software to keep track of your credits and debits

[lookingforjob]

Thanks Tsveta,

I think getting a good accountant is the most important of all. I have a friend an IT contractor like me, who does his taxes by himself. He is probably losing money, because he doesn't want to consult a professional accountant, but that is his choice. I would never do my own corporate tax return by myself.

[Tsveta]

I wouldn't do my corporate taxes myself, if I had a corporation. Your friend definitely loses money and I don't think he can file his companies’ taxes without being chartered accountant in the first place. Not every accountant can file corporate taxes as far as I know.

[lana]

You are right. Only Chartered Accountant can file corporate taxes.

One more tip from me. Don't leave everything for the last moment. Every month find a time to sort your bills and receipts and file them. This will save you a lot of trouble when the tax season comes.

[Paul]

Keeping good records and a good accountant will do the trick. :)

[lookingforjob]

The tax season is just a few months away. I hate this time of the year, and I hate all the paperwork I need to prepare for my accountant.

[philip]

If you hate doing your taxes and who doesn’t then you should look at one of the umbrella or contingency companies, we take care of so much of the paper work and provide simple files that you can take into an accountant or we can pass them to ours, the fees come down the tax savings go up, it really does work, and lots of Canadians are starting to do it.

[Tsveta]

How much do you charge to do the paperwork for tax preparation for a small corporation?

[philip]

We only do the paper work for our clients as part of our complete service. We provide through out the year, much more than just end of year prep work, the end of year documentation just comes as part of the service for which we charge between 2.5 and 5% of the amount billed, this is either deducted from the payments from clients or we charge the end client this amount as we solve a number of problems for them as well.

[contractor]

I think for a small corporation an accountant should charge no more than $1300.