Budget-Friendly Fractional CFO Services for Canadian Businesses

HST combines the 5% federal GST with a provincial component in five participating provinces. For 2026 the combined rates are 13% in Ontario, 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island, and 14% in Nova Scotia since 1 April 2025. Elsewhere you charge the 5% GST alone, or GST plus a separate provincial tax. The rate follows the province of supply, not where your business sits.

For the 2025 tax year the filing and payment deadline is 30 April 2026. If you or your spouse were self-employed, the filing deadline moves to 15 June 2026, but any balance owing is still due 30 April 2026. Interest starts the day after the payment deadline, and a late-filing penalty applies on top when a return with a balance owing is filed late. File on time even with nothing owing, because income-tested benefits are recalculated from the filed return.

Canadian income tax is built up in layers. You total your income for the year, subtract the deductions you qualify for to arrive at taxable income, then apply the federal brackets and your province's brackets to that figure. Each bracket rate applies only to the income sitting inside it, so earning more never retaxes the dollars below. Non-refundable credits, starting with the basic personal amount, come off the tax afterwards. Look up the CRA bracket table for the tax year you are filing.

Online banking is the simplest route: add the CRA as a payee, select the account and tax year precisely, and pay from your chequing account. CRA My Payment takes debit card payments, and pre-authorised debit can be scheduled in My Account or My Business Account for a single amount or a run of instalments. Corporations and GST/HST registrants use the same channels under their business number. Keep the confirmation number and allow several days for the payment to post.

CRA online filing for 2025 returns opened 23 February 2026 and closes 29 January 2027. Most people file between late February and the 30 April 2026 deadline, and that stretch is what tax season refers to. You can gather documents and prepare a return earlier, but it cannot be sent electronically before the system opens. Employment and investment slips such as T4 and T5 are issued by payers early in the year, and the CRA's Auto-fill service can pull the ones it already holds once you have set up My Account.

Most tax saving comes from a short list of levers: contributing to an RRSP or a spousal RRSP, holding investments inside a TFSA, FHSA or RESP so growth is sheltered, claiming every deduction and credit you actually qualify for, and splitting income where the rules allow, such as pension income splitting. Business owners add expense timing and salary versus dividend planning. Order matters, so decide before year end rather than at filing time.

Yes. Canada has no floor below which income stops being reportable: every dollar of employment, self-employment, tip, gig, interest and foreign income goes on the return, whether or not a slip was issued. What a small total does change is whether tax is payable, because credits such as the federal basic personal amount ($16,452 for 2026, tapering to $14,829 at higher income) can reduce the balance to nil. Filing anyway protects benefits and builds RRSP room.

A taxable supply is a good or service supplied in the course of a commercial activity, and it is the category that GST/HST attaches to. Most sales fall here: goods, services, leases, licences and admissions. Two sub-groups matter. Zero-rated supplies are taxable at 0%, such as basic groceries, prescription drugs and most exports, and still support input tax credits. Exempt supplies, such as residential rent, most health care and municipal transit, are outside the tax and give no credits.

A supplementary or omitted bill comes from your municipality when the assessed value of a property changes part way through a year, usually after new construction, an addition, a major renovation or a change of use, or when the property was left off the assessment roll earlier. It charges tax on the added value from the date it took effect, so one bill can cover more than one year. If your lender pays your taxes, confirm whether this amount is included.

Tips are taxable income, whether paid in cash, on a card, or through a pool. Where the employer controls and distributes them, such as a mandatory service charge or a house pool, they count as employment income, appear on your T4, and carry CPP and EI. Tips customers hand you directly are still taxable but usually are not on the T4, so you report them yourself. Keep a daily record to support the amount.

Add up every taxable source for the year: CPP, Old Age Security, pension payments, the RRIF minimum plus any extra withdrawal, and investment income held outside registered plans. Apply that year's federal and provincial brackets to the total, then subtract credits such as the basic personal, age and pension amounts. Adjust for pension splitting with a spouse and for Old Age Security recovery if income is high. Tax already withheld on your slips is credited against the result.

Yes. Old Age Security is taxable income, reported on the annual slip Service Canada issues and included on your return with your other income. No tax is withheld unless you ask Service Canada to withhold it, so OAS on its own can create a balance owing each spring. Higher-income recipients also face the recovery tax, which claws back part or all of the pension once net income passes a threshold that is indexed annually, with monthly payments reduced afterwards.