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Just incorporated in Toronto and staring at your first corporate tax year? This is the plain-language primer on what changes now that you own a corporation rather than a sole proprietorship.
Your corporation is a separate taxpayer
The single biggest shift: the company is a legal person that files its own T2 and pays its own tax. Its money is not automatically your money. You take income out as salary (a deductible expense to the company, taxed on your T1) or as dividends (paid from after-tax profits, taxed at preferential personal rates). Mixing personal and corporate spending is the most common rookie mistake, and it clutters the very books you will pay someone to untangle at year-end.
Pick a fiscal year-end deliberately
A new corporation sets its own year-end, and it does not have to be December 31. Many Toronto businesses choose a year-end a few months out from incorporation to spread the first-year workload and to give planning room. Whatever you pick, the T2 is due six months later, and any balance owing is due two or three months after year-end.
The small business deduction is the point
The reason most people incorporate is the low CCPC rate, roughly 12% combined in Ontario on the first $500,000 of active business income, versus personal rates that climb past 50%. That gap lets you leave profit in the company and defer personal tax until you actually need the cash. It only works if the income is active and if you keep passive investment income inside the company under control.
Set up the basics now
- Open a dedicated business bank account and run everything through it.
- Register for a GST/HST number once you approach $30,000 in revenue.
- If you will pay yourself a salary, open a payroll account and remit source deductions.
- Start bookkeeping from day one; catching up a year later always costs more.
What to expect at year-end
Your accountant compiles financial statements, prepares the T2 with its schedules, and advises on the salary-versus-dividend mix for the year. Come with reconciled books and the first filing is straightforward. The habits you set in year one determine how much every future year costs.