This,
Your business has to be related to your expenses. For example if you own a laundromat, writing off a F150 truck will fly by the CRA but good luck explaining why you wrote off the lease of a Porsche 911. Does your business promote parts/service of sports cars? Do you need to impress clients like a realtor to earn their business? etc etc

Yeah, knew there was a catch somewhere. Don't want to run afoul of the taxman. I had problems when I started as a sole proprietorship and switched over to an incorporated company. Didn't really know what I was doing and messed things up. CRA called me and started asking all kinds of questions, that's when I got the professionals involved and straightened things out. Cost me a few bucks but now everything is running smoothly.

If you spend $200 at the bar and it lead to or resulted in a business relationship you can write it off. Again, it's all about how material the amount is. CRA materiality is $500.

If your bar tab is $1500 - you will have some major explaining to do. However, if that results in a direct revenue of $5000 on a monthly/yearly/etc.. basis and you can proove it - you are good as gold.

@ sleepy - have you ever thought about a holding company? It'll cost you a few toonies to set it up, but I think it's worth it. OPCO will be it's own entity with HOLDCO being the majority shareholder. All your profits transferred to HOLDCO will be taxed higher because it's passive income, but once you dividend out it'll trigger a tax credit to HOLDCO.
* I personally don't know all that much about holdco's - I just generally know how they are used.

@Fsy - interested to see your thoughts on such structure..

I mean we could always find a way to get your money out with paying the least amount of taxes but I have to ask myself is this person trying to evade the tax. CRA lately has been cracking down a lot and to be honest its worth pay a little more tax than paying interest and penalties later on for doing something you shouldn't have. A lot of newbie or less strict accountants are being caught for doing tax evasion. People think hey my accountant did it for me so i'm not responsible. But as soon as you sign your tax return your telling CRA that i understand what is being submitted and accept it to be true.

You can either increase your salary the following year to expense the 20,000, pay your self a dividend or if you have more than 20,000 invested into the company than pay out some of your shareholder loan.

I write of all conferences/AGMs/Forums/etc...I would go to. Sometimes I would spend an extra few days and write those off as well.

I use: Brown's Income Tax : Welcome Guy's name is Damien. Cool guy who will sit and talk to you for awhile about everything. Gives you tip/pointers on how to write off other things.....Kind of a tit-pervert though. I am will to sacrifice him talking to my chest for a good deal though :)

Dude, I nearly pissed my pants, I was so happy. It was my first time making good money and had nightmares that I was going to be fucked!

I have EVERYTHING! I have boxes and boxes of receipts, papers, spreadsheets, forms, etc....I still think it is too good to be true!


The only thing that sucks about being self-employed was having to apply for a mortgage. HUGE headache, but it got done. You really need to make sure everything is straight before the bank will even look at you.

Also, having to pay 9% CPP. Usually your employer pays 4.5% and you pay 4.5%, but being self-employed, you need to pay both.

Keeping everything and dealing with "tax time" (which is in June for the self-employed) can be a real pain in the ass and I have spent quite a few nights organizing everything, but when it comes time to paying, it is REALLY worth it.

And, obviously everything has to be pretty legit in the way of writing shit off.

I don't write off all my groceries, etc....but maybe once a month I'll throw a non-work related restaurant receipt in the box. Same with clothing...

I don't buy a new car every year, and the vehicle I have is pretty related to my business.

I do double dip however....I will contact for a company who pays my gas...but doesn't ask for receipts....I take those receipts and use them for myself. Some times the same with field supplies, hotels, and food.

You can write A LOT of shit off. One of my close friends works for his family's company, and leased a 2010 750i. After write-offs, he only pays $6,000/year out of pocket to operate the car. Compare that to joe-blow who purchases it for about $120k AND pays for the massive depreciation.

I'm not sure if you're talking about me but all of my dealings are 100% legit and all taxes are paid. What I'm worried about is getting sued for something that isn't my fault and losing everything I've saved up because it's still in the company books.

A for instance, I worked on a forklift because it didn't have brakes. I pulled the ignition coil wire, removed the floor plates, left the hood open, took out the ignition key, disconnected the battery and told the person in charge that I would be gone for 15 minutes to get parts and no one is to touch the machine. Guess what, when I get back 15 minutes later, the machine has been moved and the idiot drove it into a wall doing damage to his product. Everything was put back into place and a screwdriver was used to start it. Now if the guy had run into a customer, I would most likely be named in the lawsuit and probably assigned some kind of blame because I didn't assign an armed guard to watch the machine.

tiger_handheld, I've talked to my CA about a holding company and he doesn't feel that it would be worth the trouble. He thinks I should buy higher liability insurance coverage, like about 5 million dollars worth :eek:. Lawyers are getting sue-happy and settlements are climbing. I've been thinking about starting up another company and transferring funds from the original into the second to buy and sell used equipment. My original business is licensed as a service related business.

yeah but does he add the auto benefits used for personal driving on his T4?

120k car is pretty elaborate for any business man, you should ask your friend what his reasons are?
Might not fly with the CRA

he will need to add back a standby charge and an operating benefits to his income. at 120k, the standby is close to 30k on top for his income. Operating benefit excluded, the Federal tax he will need to pay on it is already 4.5k if hes at the lowest tax bracket.

tax free, if he drives it 100% all the time for business purposes though, and leaves the car at the business all the time when not using.
driving from home to work, and work to home is not classified as business related according to the CRA

Same advice I got, from someone a CGA at CRA actually.

Well I don't have tits so...

Anyways, thanks for that. Will look into them. I travel and take courses but haven't been writing them off. I still have the receipts. This year's been a good year so I'll likely be writing off the expenses.

thanks for the tips.