We do a lot more than just taxes! If you’re only getting in touch with us around tax season, you could be missing out. We work with start-ups and growing businesses and help advise them as they grow and go through different stages.
Here are some common situations:
Incorporation
We often have discussions with small business owners about whether they want to look at setting up a corporation. Just because your friend is incorporated doesn’t mean you should be! Every situation is different.
For example, a growing consulting business we work with is run by a husband and wife. They have a partnership in the business and didn’t know whether incorporating was a good idea. We sat down with them to review the situations in which having a corporation would be beneficial from a tax perspective as well as with division of equity and shares.
Solo entrepreneurs, life partners and businesses owned by two non-related people are all a bit different.
We’ll even sit down with business owners who have incorporated and help them figure out if it truly is the best set up for what they are currently doing.
Trusts
I had a client who was wondering if they should set up a trust. We sat down with them to speak about what a trust is and how it could benefit them.
It’s important to understand how trusts work. It’s a tool we use selectively because they are complicated and not for everyone, but where they’re useful, they can be very useful.
A trust can exist for a couple of reasons:
Estate
When someone dies, all of their stuff ends up in their estate. That’s the most common kind of trust people are familiar with. It’s a legal structure that CRA recognizes – an entity that should pay tax based on the income it earns.
The trust has trustees, who are responsible for giving out the money to beneficiaries according to certain rules.
For instance, some people set up a trust for their grandchildren who are only able to access the funds when they reach a certain age. The trustees manage the funds and make sure that the money is distributed according to the wishes of the grandparent.
Business Ownership
Another example is a family business. If there is a lot of value in the business, it can benefit from having a trust in place.
While the business is still in operation, the owners can set up a trust with their children being the beneficiaries. They can start to earn income from the trust, which can help pay for schooling and save their parents (the business owners) taxes.
If income distribution is based on shares, the rules are rigid. A trust can be structured any way you like – and the rules can be very flexible, changing every year as needed.
When the owners are ready to sell the business, a trust is especially useful if for any reason they don’t want the funds distributed evenly to their children, which makes sense if one has contributed more to the business than the other.
Financing
We work with some businesses that want to raise a lot money, but the bank requires a financial review.
We’ll explain what kind of assurance work we can do where we’re giving an opinion on the business, which is part of the tax work. We can also help them to find out what other things they might have to provide.
Regular updates
I meet with a client quarterly to find out how their quarter is going. They sit down with staff to present how things are going regarding revenue, budgets and what work is coming up. Before doing that, they want to sit down and figure out if they’re missing anything.
These are just a few of the examples of how we help our clients year-round. Many entrepreneurs have never run a business before and sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. If you want to have a discussion with us about your business, please give us a call – we love to help!