Personal tax accountant in Edmonton

The corporation issues the slips it will be measured against

An owner's personal return is built from slips their own corporation produced. Salary appears on a T4 filed after the calendar year ends, with the tax already withheld and remitted through the year. Dividends appear on a T5, with nothing withheld at all. Both are filed with the CRA as well as given to the recipient, which means the personal return is being matched against information the corporation itself supplied — and any discrepancy between the two is visible before a human looks at either. Slips prepared carelessly, or prepared from figures that do not tie to the corporate accounts, create a mismatch that is entirely self-inflicted. See slip filing deadlines.

No withholding means the bill arrives whole

An employee has tax deducted from every pay, so the return usually settles a small difference. An owner paid by dividend has had nothing withheld, so the full personal tax on a year of dividends is payable as one amount. The first year of that is a shock; the second is worse, because by then instalment obligations have usually begun. The remedy is not complicated — it is setting the money aside as dividends are declared rather than treating declared amounts as spendable — but it does require knowing the figure in advance rather than learning it at filing.

Instalments start after the tax, not with it

Personal tax instalments are generally required once the amount owing at filing exceeds a threshold in the current year and in one of the two preceding years. The result is a lag: an owner switches to dividends, owes a large balance for the first time, and the following year owes both the new year's tax and instalments toward it. Instalment reminders are issued based on prior filings, and interest applies where required instalments are not paid, which makes the reminder something to plan against rather than an estimate to ignore. See how instalments work.

Shareholder loans have to reconcile

Money taken out of a corporation that is neither salary nor a dividend generally sits in a shareholder loan account, and amounts left outstanding beyond a defined period can be included in the shareholder's personal income. Interest can also be imputed on balances owing. An owner who draws through the year and decides the characterisation afterwards is relying on the loan account being reconciled properly at year-end, and the personal return depends on the answer. This is one of the clearest cases where the corporate and personal returns cannot sensibly be prepared by different people. See shareholder loans.

Two deadlines, and the one that is not extended

An individual who carried on a business, or whose spouse did, generally has until mid-June to file the return — but any balance owing is still due at the end of April, and interest runs from then regardless of the filing extension. Owners routinely conflate the two dates and pay interest on a balance while believing they are within the deadline. The filing extension is genuine; the payment extension does not exist. See personal tax deadlines.

What is covered

One Chartered Professional Accountant handles the whole file:

• T4 and T5 slip preparation tied to the corporate accounts
• Shareholder loan reconciliation between the two returns
• Instalment calculation and payment scheduling
• T1 prepared alongside the federal and Alberta corporate returns
• Deadline management for filing and payment separately

Remote, and there is no Edmonton office

EverStone operates from one office, in Abbotsford, British Columbia, and has no Edmonton location. Engagements run entirely online — video meetings, e-signature and secure upload. See accounting for Alberta businesses.