CPA for contractors in Alberta

For a one-owner Alberta contractor, monthly bookkeeping, payroll and the year-end T2 with statements usually cost from $500 to $700 a month all-in.

Accountant for contractors in Alberta, wherever the work is: Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Medicine Hat, Airdrie and the towns between. The Edmonton and Calgary pages cover each city’s market; this page is what every Alberta contractor shares.

Two corporate returns from one year-end

Alberta is one of two provinces that administers its own corporate income tax. Your corporation files a federal T2 with the CRA and a separate AT1 with Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration, each with its own deadline, its own instalment rules and its own set of schedules. They are prepared from one year-end file, and they have to agree: the taxable income on the AT1 is the federal figure with Alberta’s adjustments, so a change on one return moves the other. Corporate tax for Calgary corporations covers the mechanics of the pair.

T5018s and the question underneath them

A construction business that pays subcontractors for construction services generally files T5018 information returns for those payments. That is the easy half. The hard half is whether a given worker is a subcontractor at all. The test is the substance of the arrangement, not the heading on the invoice. It asks who controls the work, who supplies the tools, who carries profit and loss, and whether the worker can send someone else. Getting it wrong brings CPP and EI exposure with interest. It tends to be found by comparison, one crew treated as employees beside a similar crew treated as subs. Subcontractor versus employee works through the tests; the T5018 form page covers the slip itself.

The lien act sets the payment clock

Alberta’s prompt-payment and lien legislation times invoicing and payment down the contracting chain and requires a statutory holdback to be retained from each progress draw until the lien period runs. For the books, the holdback is money billed, earned and not yet usable. A job straddling the year-end has to be reviewed for work in progress and holdbacks both ways, or the return puts profit in the wrong year. GST does not always follow the invoice date either.

No PST, and the sales-tax risk that replaces it

Alberta contractors charge 5% GST and nothing else on Alberta jobs. That simplicity ends at the border. A job in BC brings 7% PST on materials installed into real property, generally as the contractor’s own cost. A job in Saskatchewan brings PST at a different rate on a different base and can require a separate registration. A job in Ontario brings HST at 13%. Place-of-supply rules decide which applies, based on where the work is performed rather than where the corporation is registered, so settle the tax before pricing the job. Place of supply sets out the rules; Alberta tax facts tables the rates.

Payroll once you carry crew

Carrying employees is the biggest single change in a trades file, and it usually arrives because a contract required it. From the first pay run there are source deductions on a remittance schedule set by your average monthly withholding, year-end slips, and WCB Alberta coverage with clearance letters to collect before releasing a subcontractor’s final payment. Penalties attach to the deduction rather than the tax, which makes a missed remittance date expensive out of proportion to the amount. Payroll, handled covers the engagement; the remittance calendar keeps the dates.

Equipment, CCA and the timing of a purchase

Trucks, trailers, tooling and shop equipment are capital assets recovered through capital cost allowance, and for a contractor the schedule is often the largest single deduction on the return. The half-year rule generally halves the first claim on an asset in the year it becomes available for use; the accelerated investment incentive can suspend that for eligible property and allow a substantially larger first-year deduction. Timing a large purchase around the year-end is real planning, but only where the year’s income can absorb the deduction; the work-in-progress review answers that. CCA classes tables the classes a contractor meets most often.

The same review is where instalments get planned. Construction income concentrates into part of the year, yet both the CRA and Alberta expect corporate instalments through all of it. A flat projection of last year’s tax lands the largest payments in the months with the least cash. The instalment calculator shows whether they apply to you at all. If you are asking who offers tax planning help for Alberta contractors, this year-end review is where EverStone plans both instalments and the timing of equipment purchases.

What EverStone handles for an Alberta contractor

One firm, one fixed fee agreed up front:

• Federal T2 and Alberta AT1 from one year-end file, prepared to agree
• Year-end statements a bonding company or lender will accept
• T5018 returns, with the subcontractor positions behind them documented
• Payroll remittances, year-end slips and WCB clearance tracking
• Work-in-progress, holdback and progress-draw review at year-end
• Equipment and vehicle CCA schedules
• GST filed and reconciled; place of supply settled before an out-of-province bid

The fee for all of it is fixed and agreed before any work starts; the published fee page shows the starting points, and a sample quote shows what one looks like in writing. As a CPA for contractors Alberta corporations engage remotely, EverStone fixes that fee in writing after reviewing your enquiry.

Remote contractor accounting

EverStone is a fully virtual CPA firm working with Alberta contractors online. There is no Alberta office and no staff in the province. Everything runs by video, phone, secure exchange and e-signature. Job records, progress claims, supplier invoices and holdback schedules already live in software, which suits construction.

Where the aim is moving up a class of work, fractional CFO support for Edmonton contractors and for Calgary companies covers bid discipline and the progress-billing cash curve.

For bookkeeping in Calgary and payroll in Edmonton, the scope and the fixed-fee approach are the same.