GST/HST filing in Cochrane

What we file: the GST/HST return (the GST34 or its electronic equivalent), input tax credit claims, registration and filing-period changes, and the replies when the CRA asks for support.

One tax, and where the risk goes instead

Returns go in through My Business Account or GST/HST NETFILE, and the online authorization (or form RC59) lets your accountant see the GST account directly. Alberta is the outlier among the provinces. There is no provincial sales tax, which the CRA’s own rate table records as a provincial rate of nil. A Cochrane business selling only within Alberta charges 5% GST and nothing else — one registration, one return, one administrator, and no non-recoverable provincial tax buried in its input costs. Alberta does levy a separate tourism levy on accommodation, which matters to anyone renting short-stay rooms, but it is a specific charge rather than a general sales tax.

What that simplicity does is concentrate the exposure. In a province with two systems, a review can go wrong in several directions. In Alberta there is effectively one question, and it is on the purchase side: can you support the input tax credits you claimed? The position, with its source, is on the Alberta tax facts page.

When a Cochrane business has to register

A business must register once its taxable sales pass the $30,000 small-supplier threshold over four consecutive calendar quarters, and it charges GST from that point. Below it, registration is optional. For many of the home-based businesses the Town of Cochrane describes, the decision is a real one. A consultant billing other registered businesses loses nothing by registering, because the clients claim the GST back, and gains the input tax credits on a laptop, software and a share of home costs. A business selling mostly to consumers adds 5% to its prices by registering early. Neither answer is automatically right, and it is worth deciding deliberately rather than by default.

What an input tax credit actually requires

A claim is not supported by the fact that money left the bank. The documentation has to identify the supplier and, at the applicable thresholds, carry the supplier’s GST registration number. It has to show the tax charged or enough to calculate it, and it has to describe the supply well enough that someone else can tell what was bought. A credit card statement showing a merchant name and a total meets none of those tests, and it is the most common category of claim disallowed in a review.

Three further points recur in Cochrane files. Where a supplier is not registered there is no GST to claim, whatever the invoice shows, and registration numbers can be verified. Where an expense is used partly for personal purposes — a vehicle, a phone, a home office — only the business share is claimable, and the apportionment should be recorded when the claim is made. And credits do not have to be claimed in the period the tax was paid: there is a window, so a missed credit found in a later review can often still be recovered.

Downtown shops, trades and the quick method

Different Cochrane businesses meet GST differently. A downtown retailer or restaurant collects GST at the till, and the return has to agree with the point-of-sale reports, not just the bank deposits. A contractor charges GST on progress billings and claims large credits on materials and equipment, so the timing of a big purchase can turn a return into a refund. A small service business with modest costs may be better off on the quick method, which calculates the remittance as a percentage of sales instead of tracking every credit. We look at which approach fits on the first review, and revisit it as the business changes.

Farm sales are often zero-rated

Around Cochrane, Rocky View County supports a working agricultural community, and many farm products, such as grain and livestock raised for food, are zero-rated. A registered farm charges no GST on those sales but still claims input tax credits on fuel, repairs and equipment, which usually makes the return a refund. Other sales from the same operation, such as custom work or horses sold for riding, can carry 5% GST. See farm accounting in Cochrane for the detail.

The complication arrives at the border

The one place Alberta’s simplicity ends is when you sell outward. The rate follows the place of supply rather than your address, so a Cochrane business selling into a harmonized province charges that province’s HST rate, not 5%. Selling into a province with its own provincial sales tax raises a second question about whether you have obligations there as well. A Cochrane software or design business with clients across the country is the typical case: it keeps invoicing at 5% out of habit and builds up an under-collection that the seller, not the customer, ends up owing. Place-of-supply rules explain how the rate is decided.

Filing on time, and what late costs

The CRA assigns a reporting period — monthly, quarterly or annual — based on sales, and a business can elect a more frequent one to get refunds sooner. Late returns attract penalties and interest even where nothing is owing on paper, and a demand to file carries its own penalty. What late GST filing costs works through the arithmetic. Keeping the books monthly is what makes the return a short job each period rather than a project.

What is covered

• GST registration, or review of your existing reporting period
• Returns prepared and filed on your assigned schedule
• Input tax credits claimed against documentation that supports them
• Supplier registration status confirmed where a claim depends on it
• Business and personal apportionment recorded at the time of claim
• Rates checked against place of supply for any sales made outside Alberta
• Returns reconciled to the ledger, and CRA correspondence handled

Fully online, with no Cochrane office

EverStone is a sole practitioner CPA firm that works online. There is no Cochrane office. Records arrive through secure exchange, returns are reviewed on a video call where needed, and filings are approved by e-signature. One accountant holds the file, which keeps the documentation standard consistent from one period to the next rather than tightening only when a review letter arrives.

GST filing elsewhere in Alberta

The same service, online and at the same published fees, for owners in Calgary, Airdrie and Red Deer.