Incorporation Cost Worksheet

The usual way the incorporation question gets answered is by comparing tax saved against the incorporation fee. That comparison is wrong, because the incorporation fee is a one-off and the cost of running a corporation is annual. A structure that saves a few thousand in tax and costs a few thousand a year to maintain has not saved anything.

This worksheet separates the two. One-off costs sit in one block, recurring annual costs in another, and both total automatically — so what you end up comparing against the tax saving is the ongoing figure, which is the one that matters.

It is deliberately left blank of prices. Costs vary by province, by provider and by how complex your affairs are, and a worksheet that guessed them would be worth less than one you fill in with real quotes. Gather your own numbers; the structure is what this provides.

When you have the total, run the incorporation tax calculator and compare. If the tax saving does not clearly exceed the recurring column, the answer is usually not yet.

Fill it in with real quotes rather than estimates, and get them before deciding rather than after. Most of these costs are quotable in a phone call, and the difference between a guessed figure and a quoted one is often large enough to change the answer. Once the Per year total is filled in, the comparison is simple: if the annual tax saving does not clearly exceed it, incorporating is a cost rather than a saving this year.