C.A. Haché Bookkeeping

02/17/2025

To book a free 30 mins consultation call, please click on this link: https://app.hellobonsai.com/f/09e949b2912ca5f

02/02/2024

Important 2024 Tax dates

06/19/2023

05/03/2022

Ah yes, me in my hoodie and drinking my tea... and it was still warm.

04/18/2022

Reminder: 2021 personal tax return due on May 2nd, 2022 as April 30th falls on a Saturday.

Self-employment tax deadline is on June 15th, 2022 if you don’t owe money on your self-employment tax return. However, if you owe money on your self-employment tax return, the payment is due May 2nd, 2022.

It is recommended to put together your self-employment tax return together by the initial deadline of May 2nd, 2022 and you will know what you owe in tax and make a payment. Then, you can file your return anytime between the payment date and June 15th, 2022.

If you file a return late past the deadlines noted above and you owe tax money, you will be subject to a penalty. CRA charges you 5% of the total amount owing in tax. In addition, they will charge you 1% for each month that you are late with full payment.

If you have received any COVID-19 relief benefits in 2021, your deadline to file taxes in 2022 will remain the same as May 2, 2022.

03/04/2022

8 Common Tax Write-Offs for Freelancers and Small Businesses

1- Home office exp.: mortgage interest if you own a home, rent, utilities, internet, heat, property taxes, repairs & maintenance, and home insurance. You can write off most of these by calculating the % of your home office space compared to the total size of your home.

2- Car exp. if you drive for business purposes (such as fuel, insurance, repairs & maintenance, vehicle registration fees). You can claim a % of your car expenses based on km driven in the year for business over your total mileage in the year. For example, if you drove 5,000 km in the year for business and 20,000 km in total for the year, then you can write off 25% of your vehicle expenses.

Please keep an accurate logbook to verify the mileage used for personal and business purposes, with the odometer reading at the start and at the end of the year.

3- Accounting & Legal/Professional fees: fees paid to bookkeeper and accountant, and any legal fees incurred.

4- Office rent (e.g. outside office space you rent and warehouse space for inventory): rent paid to your landlord for the use of office space. Keep copies of your lease agreement and rent receipts.

5- Advertising: online advertising (Facebook & Instagram, website hosting), television/radio ads, and magazine/newspaper ads.

6- Meals & Entertainment: only 50% of the amount you spend on meals and entertainment with clients is tax-deductible. Also includes meals when you traveled and the cost of attending a conference or convention.

7- Office exp.: office supplies such as pens, paper, & desk accessories, and business apps and software subscriptions like Canva, Gsuite, Quickbooks, Shopify, and others essential to your business.

8- Capital Assets: Deduction is limited to allowable CCA (capital cost allowance) that is based on the type of asset you have such as computers/laptops and office furniture. These assets cannot be written off in a single year. They are written off over a period of time-based on CRA’s specified CCA depreciation rates.

For example, office furniture would be under Class 8 with a 20% depreciation allowance rate per year.

02/24/2022

Important 2022 Tax Dates:

- February 28, 2022: Deadline to file T4 & T4A slips along with the related Summary form. Don't forget to give the T4 slips to your employees.

- March 1, 2022: Deadline to contribute to an RRSP, A PRPP, and/or an SPP.

- May 2, 2022: Deadline to file and pay your taxes (April 30 is on a Saturday).

- June 15, 2022: Deadline to file your taxes if you or your spouse or common-law partner are self-employed.

02/21/2022

Trust me, don’t wait to do it! I see folks wait a month before the tax deadline to do so and it is a mad dash to finish on time.

Start now and take your time making sure all of your transactions are categorized correctly, all of your bank and credit card accounts reconciled correctly, and take account of your business tax deductions.

02/18/2022

It is important to have your expenses and income recorded correctly so that when you pull your Profit & Loss and/or Income Statement, it helps with your calculations for your small business tax deductions. It also helps make sure you don’t overspend on certain categories and do your budget better.

By categorizing your transactions properly, it also allows you to spot red flags. For example, if you made an expense under your business credit card, but it was supposed to be for your personal credit card, you can make an adjustment so it reflects your correct profit amount.

02/14/2022

Ahh, receipts...yes those small paper fragile things….

It is important to make sure you save them so if CRA needs to see your records in an audit, it is easier to provide them.

Quickbooks has a feature where you can attach the receipt to the expense directly. You can also email the receipt and send it to a specific email provided by Quickbooks.

There are also other receipt management apps such as Hubdoc and Dext where you can store your receipts, share them with your bookkeepers and/or accountants, and export them to your accounting software i.e. Quickbooks Online.

I will make a post later to discuss further receipt management and tip/tricks.

Quick tip: take a photo of your receipt right away and save it in your Google Drive (if you have Gmail). If you get your receipts electronically, save them in a specific folder in your email.

02/11/2022

This one sucks because if you fail to do so for months, it can be challenging to get your accounts cleaned up and remember transactions that may warrant special attention.

It is not impossible to fix it. It is just going to take a while.