Expert Tax Accountants in Vancouver

Not indefinitely. Property tax is collected by your municipality, which charges interest on arrears and can eventually register a tax arrears certificate and sell the property under provincial tax-sale rules. The permitted period of arrears is set by provincial legislation and varies, so ask your municipality for its schedule and payment options. Municipal arrears are separate from anything owing to the CRA, and paying one does not clear the other.

A small business corporation is a Canadian-controlled private corporation that uses substantially all of its assets in an active business carried on mainly in Canada. The label matters because it opens access to the small business deduction, which for 2026 applies the 9% federal rate to the first $500,000 of active business income, and to the lifetime capital gains exemption on a share sale. Holding companies and passive investment corporations usually fail the asset test.

No PST. British Columbia's PST does not apply to food for human consumption, and that exemption covers candy and confectionery, so a chocolate bar carries no 7% PST. GST is a separate question: candy and snack foods are not basic groceries for GST purposes, so the 5% GST does apply. Sweetened carbonated drinks are the notable exception on the provincial side and do attract PST. The province's PST bulletin on food and beverages sets out the lines.

There is no fixed student refund. A refund is simply the tax withheld from your pay minus the tax you actually owe, so a student with modest earnings and some withholding often gets most of it back. Tuition amounts are a non-refundable credit: they reduce tax owing but do not create a refund on their own, and unused amounts carry forward to later years or can be transferred to a parent, grandparent or spouse within limits.

British Columbia charges property transfer tax when a transfer is registered at the Land Title Office, calculated on the fair market value of the property using graduated rates that rise with value, plus a further charge on the residential value above a high-value threshold. Foreign buyers in designated areas pay an additional amount. Exemptions exist for first-time buyers and certain newly built homes, subject to price limits. Run your own numbers through the province's calculator.

British Columbia's property tax deferment programme is a low-interest loan from the province that pays the annual property tax on your principal residence. Eligibility is limited, broadly to older homeowners, surviving spouses, people with disabilities, and families supporting a child, and there are minimum equity and fire insurance requirements. The province registers a lien on the title and charges simple interest, and the balance falls due when the property is sold or transferred. You renew each year.

Start with total income from all sources, subtract deductions such as RRSP contributions to get taxable income, then apply the federal graduated rates and your province's rates to that figure. Subtract non-refundable credits, including the basic personal amount, then subtract tax already withheld on slips and any instalments paid. What is left is your balance owing or refund. CRA-certified tax software does this arithmetic; the CRA also publishes the rate and credit tables.

The Canada child benefit is a monthly tax-free payment based on how many children are in your care, their ages, whether a child qualifies for the disability benefit, and your adjusted family net income. Amounts are recalculated every July from the previous year's returns, so you and your spouse or common-law partner must both file each year to keep payments flowing. Apply through birth registration or in CRA My Account, and use the CRA's online calculator to estimate the amount.

You cannot write off the income itself, but you deduct the costs of earning it. Common current expenses are mortgage interest (not principal), property tax, insurance, utilities you pay, condo fees, advertising, property management, and repairs that maintain the property. Improvements that better the property are capital and depreciated instead. Only the rented portion counts where you also live there. Keep invoices for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to.

Largely no. PST in British Columbia and Saskatchewan and RST in Manitoba are retail sales taxes, not value-added taxes, so PST paid on business purchases is generally a cost rather than a credit. Relief comes from claiming an exemption at the time of purchase, such as goods bought for resale or certain production equipment, not from a return. Quebec's QST, 9.975% for 2025 and 2026, is different and is recoverable through input tax refunds, Quebec's equivalent of input tax credits.

Yes. GST at 5% applies to taxi and ride-share fares in British Columbia, and BC PST does not apply to the fare itself. Taxi and commercial ride-sharing operators cannot use the $30,000 small-supplier threshold for 2026, so they must register and charge GST from their first fare however small the business. The tax is usually built into the metered or app-quoted price rather than added at the end of the trip.

A refund is only the gap between tax withheld and tax owed, so it moves whenever either side does. Common causes are less tax taken off your pay, a second job or pension income pushing you up a bracket, a credit or deduction you claimed last year and not this one, repaying a benefit, or the CRA applying part of the refund to a balance owing. Compare this notice of assessment against last year's.