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Montreal Financial Blog
Primary focus: Business
Should you take salary, dividends, or both from your Canadian corporation? Here are answers to the questions incorporated Canadians ask most often — covering tax, CPP, RRSPs, reporting, and more.
5 decisions to make before you incorporate your Canadian business: federal or provincial, named or numbered corporation, corporate name, share structure, and fiscal year end.
Filed your Canadian tax return? This is what happens next from your Notice of Assessment and CRA refund timeline to installments, amendments, and what self-employed individuals need to watch for specifically.
Canadian business owners can deduct a wide range of car expenses — but the rules, limits, and CRA rates change every year. This 2026 guide covers everything you need to know: the current CCA ceiling (39,000), updated lease deduction limits (1,100/month), the latest per-km rates for incorporated businesses, HST claimable on your car purchase, and new rules for electric vehicles. Updated April 2026 with current CRA figures for both sole proprietors and corporations.
Unsure how to pay yourself from your business? A CPA’s 2026 guide to owner’s draws for sole proprietors and salary vs. dividends for Canadian corporations.
Is your side project a hobby or a business? Learn the CRA Ingredients of Commerciality and how to deduct losses to lower your Canadian tax bill.
One of my ongoing challenges is defining what it means to be a small business owner. From a tax perspective, whether you’re a self-employed gig worker, freelancer, independent contractor, or solopreneur, you are essentially seen as a small business. What this effectively means is, if you’re unincorporated, you’ll report your business income and expenses on the T2125 form (statement of business activities) as part of your personal tax return. If incorporated, you’ll file a T2 corporate return. In addition to small business income, the question arises, what other types of income do you have to report and what is non taxable?
As tax season approaches, a question that I get often is whether you should do your own taxes or outsource them to a tax preparer or accountant. My answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that it depends. The first and perhaps most important factor is to determine the level of complexity you are dealing with. If your situation is simple e.g. you have a T4 slip from your employer, RRSPs and a couple of donations, it is quite easy to do it yourself especially using tax software which guides you through the process. However, if you have sold a principal residence or rental property, or have an active investment portfolio or another arcane tax event , and you are unsure of how to deal with this, it might make more sense to outsource so that you are not doubting whether you have done it correctly.
A common concept that I find myself explaining, when I talk to people about their taxes, relates to earned vs passive income. This might sound a bit yawn inducing, but (like marginal tax rates), the type of income you earn determines how it’s taxed, how much you can contribute to your RRSP, and even what benefits you qualify for.
Should you pay yourself a salary or dividends in 2026? A CPA’s guide to the 7 key factors for Canadian owners, including CPP2 updates, mortgages, and tax integration.
