The Accountant for Incorporated Professionals
Consultants, engineers, IT contractors and other professionals who work through a corporation face a specific set of tax issues — starting with whether CRA sees your company as a genuine business or a personal services business.
Related: Accountant for engineers and architects in BC.
We handle all of it. EverStone CPA advises incorporated professionals from its Abbotsford, BC base — fully remotely, wherever in Canada you practice.
Quick answer: An incorporated professional, a doctor, dentist, lawyer, engineer or consultant operating through a professional corporation — files a T2 corporate return six months after fiscal year-end and decides each year how to draw income as salary, dividends, or a mix. EverStone handles that planning and the filings online.
Paying yourself from a professional corporation? Enter your company’s profit in our 2026 pay planner: it works out corporate tax, CPP and personal tax at every salary level for 2026 and shows the split that leaves you the most.
Where professional and consulting firms usually start
Three common needs, each a different kind of engagement.
Owner compensation
How much to take as salary or dividends, and when, reviewed each year before the year closes.
Cash and receivables
Monthly books that show what clients owe, what is coming in, and what is safe to draw.
Corporate compliance
The year-end, the T2 and the owners’ personal returns, prepared together.
If you’ve incorporated to bill clients as a professional — an IT or management consultant, an engineer, a contractor billing mostly one company — your corporation saves tax only when it’s set up and run correctly. The biggest risk is the personal services business (PSB) trap, where CRA decides your corporation is really just you in disguise and strips away the deductions and low tax rate that made incorporating worthwhile. We work with incorporated professionals across BC to structure the corporation properly, plan how you draw income, and keep the whole thing defensible. The same three questions, worked through for one market: incorporated professionals in Langley.
For the wider picture — regulator share rules, associated corporations, passive income and compensation planning. See the For incorporated professionals.
What we handle for incorporated professionals
- Assessing and managing personal services business (PSB) risk
- Corporate tax (T2) returns and year-end financial statements
- Salary vs. dividend planning for a one- or few-client corporation
- Home-office, equipment and legitimate professional expenses
- GST/HST registration and filing on your professional fees
- Personal T1 returns coordinated with your corporation
The issues that decide whether incorporating pays off
Incorporating as a professional can save real tax — or save none at all if the structure fails CRA’s tests. These are the issues we focus on.
Incorporated professionals in the Fraser Valley are a large part of the practice — see the accountant in Langley BC and Maple Ridge professionals pages.Personal services business (PSB) risk
If CRA decides your corporation is a personal services business — essentially you doing a job you’d otherwise do as an employee — you lose the small-business deduction and most deductions, and the corporation is taxed at a punishing rate. It’s the single biggest risk for one-client professional corporations, and the one we assess first.
How you draw income
Salary builds RRSP room and CPP; dividends are simpler and skip CPP. For a professional with variable engagements, the right mix — and the timing of draws — can smooth your personal tax across busy and quiet years.
What you can actually deduct
Home office, equipment, professional dues, software and training are legitimate when documented. We set up simple tracking so you capture every real deduction without straying into claims that invite a reassessment.
GST/HST on your fees
Professional fees are generally taxable supplies. Once you cross the registration threshold you must charge and remit GST/HST — but you also recover input tax credits on your costs. We handle registration and filing so it’s never a scramble.
If the assessment puts you in the middle or high band, the next step is a written review of your actual arrangement. See the paid PSB review.
Keeping it defensible
The difference between a structure that holds up and one that doesn’t is documentation and consistency. We help you run the corporation like the genuine business it should be, so its tax treatment is defensible if CRA looks.
Working with EverStone, start to finish
We assess your setup
An initial review to review your contracts, clients and structure — starting with PSB risk — so we understand your actual exposure before anything else.
We structure and plan
We tune how you draw income, what you deduct, and how the corporation operates, with a fixed quote before any work begins.
We keep you compliant
T2, GST/HST, personal tax and year-end all handled through the year, so your corporation stays clean and your tax stays optimized.
This work overlaps our accounting for contractors and corporate tax services. If your professional corporation holds its interest in a practice through a partnership, that structure also needs a T5013 partnership information return — having a corporation as a partner triggers the filing requirement on its own. Start with our guides on personal services business risk and employee vs contractor classification.
Related: Accountant for physiotherapists and physio clinics.
Fees are published: monthly bookkeeping from $300, personal returns from $125, and the corporate year-end quoted in writing after we review your enquiry; see our pricing.
Questions from incorporated professionals
What is a personal services business and why does it matter?+
I mostly bill one client — is my corporation a PSB?+
Should I pay myself salary or dividends?+
Do you work with professionals outside BC?+
Was incorporating even worth it for me?+
What evidence supports that I am genuinely independent?+
Can I claim a home office if I mostly work at a client site?+
Why clients stay with EverStone
Rated 5.0 on Google across 21 client reviews.
“…He is very knowledgeable and has saved me tons in taxes by restructuring my group of companies — the best accountant I’ve worked with in the last 10 years, after switching from three different firms.”
“…We switched to him last year for both our personal and small-business taxes — responsive, knowledgeable and quick.”
“…have been completing my bookkeeping, taxes and financials for the last 2 years and they have been amazing. Thank you!”
Information on this page was last reviewed in . See our editorial standards.
Related reading
Guides that go deeper on what this page covers.
Professional corporations in Alberta
Physicians, dentists, engineers and other incorporated professionals can see the Calgary and St. Albert pages.
Starting fees
Every fee is fixed in writing before any work begins.
- Monthly bookkeeping, GST/PST filing includedfrom $325 a month
- Payroll, remittances, T4s and ROEsincluded in monthly bookkeeping
- Books, payroll and the year-end T2 together$500–$700 a month
- Corporate year-end and T2 returnfixed fee, quoted in writing
- Personal tax return (T1)from $125; self-employed or rental $275–$500
- Catch-up bookkeepingfrom $2,200 per year of records
- Controller or CFO supportcontroller from $1,650, CFO from $2,750 a month
- One-off advice call with a CPA$225 plus GST
Working in the Fraser Valley? We have a page specifically for incorporated professionals in Maple Ridge.
Working from home rather than premises? See home-based businesses in Mission.
Counsellor, therapist or clinical social worker in BC? See accounting for counselling and therapy practices.
We work with Maple Ridge professional corporations — same fixed-fee approach, entirely remote.
Where we work
The fee is the same wherever you are. We work with businesses in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Langley and Mission, across the Fraser Valley, and with owner-managed companies in Vancouver.
Incorporated as a professional?
One Chartered Professional Accountant, start to finish. Fixed fees, quoted in writing before any work begins, and no obligation from a first conversation.
“Personal. Professional. Responsive. Plus he saved me a bundle!”