Tax preparation in Surrey

Returns in a group are not independent filings

Where a business has two or more shareholders, each personal return has to agree with the corporation on what was drawn and how it was characterised. Where there is more than one corporation, intercompany balances have to net, management fees have to appear on both sides, and dividends between companies have to be traced. Prepared separately, these drift — not dishonestly, just from each preparer working with the part they can see. Prepared together, every figure is entered once and appears the same everywhere.

The $500,000 that is easier to lose than to earn

The small business deduction applies to a $500,000 limit — but associated corporations share one limit between them. Owners who set up a second company for a genuinely separate venture routinely discover the two are associated, and that the limit they assumed was $1,000,000 is $500,000 split. Association turns on control and on relationships between shareholders, including family, and it is decided by the facts rather than by intention. It is worth establishing deliberately before a second company starts trading, not at the first year-end after it did.

Shareholder balances, and the deadline nobody circles

Money taken out of a corporation that was not salary, dividend or expense reimbursement sits in a shareholder loan account. There is a repayment window, and missing it turns the balance into personal income — taxed, with no deduction to the company. With multiple owners this compounds: each shareholder has their own account, the balances need to be tracked separately, and drawings that felt equal through the year often are not once they are reconciled.

Where two owners disagree, the return is where it surfaces

Preparation for a multi-owner company is partly a reconciliation exercise between people. Unequal draws, an expense one owner treated as business and the other did not, a bonus discussed but never papered — these show up when the books are closed, at which point the tax treatment is fixed and the conversation is harder. Raising them before year-end is the difference between a decision and an adjustment.

Fixed fee for the whole group, and no office visit

One written quote covers the group — the corporate returns, the GST filings and each owner’s personal return — rather than pricing each piece separately and leaving the reconciliation between them belonging to nobody. Surrey clients work entirely remotely: secure upload, video review, e-signature. Personal returns start at $100; corporate work is quoted after a look at the books.

Businesses that also want the Surrey personal tax page and fractional CFO in Surrey can have both quoted together.

The companion page on bookkeeping in Surrey and Surrey corporate returns covers that side of the work.