Cross Border Tax Consultants

In Canada, every year many taxpayers go to file their individual income tax returns and are shocked to find that a tax return has already been filed for them! Some innocent Canadians, additionally, get fake calls from cybercriminals who impersonate as tax officials. Sadly, Tax frauds are increasing in number everyday. According to the Canadian Anti-fraud Centre, about 45,000 people became victims of cybercrimes and lost around $96 million in 2019. Even then, a big number of Canadians still take this easy and ignore certain facts about e-filing tax returns. CRA has deactivated 800,000 accounts in order to protect the information of the taxpayers whose credentials are for sale on the dark web. The cybercriminals make all these efforts for taking benefits’ payments and refunds of targeted taxpayers. They are making impersonation scams, malware, and phishing schemes. They are striving to steal the confidential information of many Canadians and Residents. If you don’t want to suffer whil...

  Americans have been moving to Canada like never before, especially in 2020. This is really important that as a U.S. Citizen you familiarize yourself with tax obligations. The U.S. taxes its citizens and permanent residents on world-wide income no matter wherever they reside. Canada taxes its residents (not citizens) on their worldwide income. Therefore, Americans in Canada must file both U.S. and Canadian income tax returns. Filing income tax returns in both countries result in some double taxation issues. Fortunately, the U.S. Canada tax treaty provides relief from the double taxation. As the tax rates are higher in Canada it results in the lower to no taxes owing in the U.S. This is important to know that U.S. citizens are subject to two important foreign assets reporting regime: FATCA and FBAR. If you meet certain thresholds you must file FINCEN 114 and 8938 to ensure compliance. If you fail, penalties are outrageously steep. TFSAs and RESPs are not taxable in Canada however...

  This is very common for the employers to avoid expenses by asking their employees to sign contracts as corporations in Canada. If you are an IT professional in Canada and your employer has asked you to incorporate a business and sign the contract, you must know the tax implications of these decisions. When a corporation has an incorporated-employee who performs services on its behalf, it is called Personal Services Business (PSB) as per Income Tax Act in Canada. First, see if your relationship is of employee or independent contactor with the business for whom you are providing these services. IF the relationship is of employment nature, your corporation will be a PSB. If the relationship is of independent contractor, you have an active business income. Now, determining whether the relationship is employee or contractor, is a fact based exercise. Simply signing a contract and saying it is a contractor is not enough. A brilliant article written by Maroof H. Sabri provides a basic...

    There are many ways small business owners can optimize their corporate income taxes for 2020. Check out here Source: https://www.maroofhs.com/post/2020-end-of-year-tax-planning-for-small-corporations-in-canada/

Property flipping is a business and taxed as a business income in Canada. Canada Revenue Agency is cracking down to ensure compliance.  Many factors decide whether you earned a capital gain from the sale of your house or it is a business. 1. What is the nature of the property? 2. How long you held the property? 3. How many real estate transactions you made? 4. How much effort did you put into renovating the property? 5. What were your original intentions when you purchased the property? 6. Under what circumstances you sold the property? A great post by a professional income tax accountant in Canada discusses the different income tax and excise tax issues related to flipping houses in Canada . In this comprehensive and easy to understand the post, Maroof Hussain Sabri, a CPA in Ontario discusses how case law provides the decisive factors to determine if the real estate transactions result in a business income or capital gain. Capital gains are included 50% only in the...

Investor pitch deck is a critical document used to pitch investors. Remember, you get only one chance to present your idea to investors so make sure you have prepared a killer pitch deck.   A typical pitch deck contains below slides: 1. Brief overview of the company: Start with presenting a brief overview of your company. 2. Mission and Vision of your Company: Carefully drafted mission and vision gives a quick insight into your company’s short term and long term goals and objectives. 3. The Problem: You must state a problem. Without presenting a problem you cannot pitch your idea. 4. The Solution: You must propose a solution to the aforementioned problem 5. Market Validation: Present that there is enough market where your proposed solution can work. Explain about the market opportunity. 6. Competition and differentiation: Present your existing and potential competitors and explain how your proposed solution offers a differentiation. Identify the key competitive advanta...

Canada needs immigrants! Immigration plays a critical role in the Canadian economy. That is why there are multiple immigration programs by different provinces and territories in Canada. Each of these programs have their own requirements based on their local needs. Almost always, business immigration to Canada needs a business concept and business plan. Some of the programs require you to submit business concept in the first stage and a business plan in the second stage. The province evaluates the business concept and business plan and assign a score based on the pre-established criteria. Such a criteria is already published by them. Therefore, it is critical that you read all those guidelines so that you can get the maximum score. A valuable post written by Maroof HS CPA Professional Corporation on how to write a killer business plan for immigration can be found here . They also provide a comprehensive business plan writing service for immigration to Canada. As explained by the pro...