You can. Many owner-managers do, especially in year one. The question is whether the time you spend, the deductions you miss, and the planning you don’t get back exceeds what you’d pay a CPA.

The T2 software gets you a return that’s mechanically correct. It doesn’t tell you that you should have paid yourself a $50,000 bonus before year-end to reduce passive income exposure. It doesn’t flag that your shareholder loan account is offside. It doesn’t catch that your prior-year RDTOH balance is wrong. Those are the conversations that pay for themselves.

Yes. A corporation that exists must file a T2 every year, even with nil revenue and no tax owing. Failing to file exposes you to late-filing penalties (a flat penalty plus a percentage of any tax owed, repeatable monthly), and persistent non-filers can have their corporate status struck off. A nil T2 is straightforward and inexpensive — there’s no reason to skip it.

Six months after your corporate year-end. So a December 31 year-end means a June 30 filing deadline; an October 31 year-end means an April 30 filing deadline.

Important: the filing deadline is six months out, but if you owe tax, the payment deadline is two months after year-end (three months for Canadian-Controlled Private Corporations claiming the small business deduction, in some cases). Interest accrues from the payment deadline, not the filing deadline. Planning matters.

Yes, and this is more common than people think. There are two paths:

1. Voluntary Disclosure Program (VDP) — if you’re behind and CRA hasn’t contacted you yet, we may be able to apply for relief from penalties and partial relief from interest. The VDP has strict eligibility criteria and a one-shot rule, so it has to be done right.

2. Taxpayer relief request — if CRA has already assessed penalties, we can request relief based on extraordinary circumstances, CRA error, or financial hardship.

I’ve handled both. The first conversation is always a free discovery call to scope what’s actually owed and what relief options apply.

The honest answer: it depends, and the right answer changes year to year. The factors include your personal tax bracket, whether you need RRSP room, CPP contributions (and whether you want them), the corporation’s small business deduction position, accumulated GRIP balance, family income splitting opportunities (limited by TOSI rules since 2018), and how soon you’ll need the cash personally.

This isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a yearly conversation, and it’s built into every engagement I run.

Maybe. Holdcos are useful for creditor protection, accessing the lifetime capital gains exemption on a future sale, paying tax-free intercorporate dividends, sheltering retained earnings, and estate freezes. They’re not free — there’s an annual T2, a separate set of financials, additional structuring complexity, and integration considerations.

The right question isn’t “do I need a holdco” — it’s “what specific outcome am I trying to achieve, and is a holdco the most efficient way to get there.” We’ll work through it together.

Yes. CRA correspondence is included for retainer clients and quoted for one-off engagements. The earliest you bring me in, the better the outcome — drafted responses, deadline management, and direct dialogue with the auditor on your behalf are all easier when we’re not in week three of a 30-day deadline.

GST/HST returns: yes, quoted as an add-on. Quarterly or annual filings, registration, voluntary registration analysis, and reasonableness review of input tax credits.

Payroll: I handle T4/T4A/T5 information returns at year-end. For monthly payroll processing, I refer to QuickBooks Online Payroll, Wagepoint, or Payworks depending on complexity, and we coordinate the year-end reconciliation.

The practice is in Woodbridge (Vaughan), Ontario. Most work is done remotely — document exchange through a secure portal, video calls for planning conversations, EFILE for submissions. I take Ontario-based corporate clients and select clients in other provinces where the structure is straightforward. I don’t take Quebec corporations (CO-17 filing has provincial requirements I don’t currently support).

Three things: principal-led service (you reach me, not a service desk), fixed pricing quoted in writing, and continuity (the person who knows your file is the person who works on it). Big firms have advantages — capacity, specialty depth, brand. They also have leverage models where senior people sell and junior people deliver. For owner-managed corporations between $250K and $10M in revenue, that trade-off rarely works in the client’s favour.