Is the Threat of a CRA Audit Keeping You Up At Night
CRA Audits Increasing Every Year Do a Google search on CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) Audits and you will find hundreds of articles about how CRA is spending more money to hire more auditors and improve statistical analysis to improve targeted audits. A few years ago, CRA reported to Parliament that random audits detected significant non-compliance in 12.2% of cases. However, targeted audits based upon certain risk assessments detected a whopping 46.7% of non-compliance. To this end, CRA has proposed to increase spending by $1.2 billion by 2024-25 to hire new auditors to improve tax compliance -- and they expect to recover and collect $5.8 billion more in taxes as a result. We should first understand why taxpayers get audited, then we can talk about things you can do to alleviate the anxiety. So what activities or characteristics will increase your risk of getting audited?
CRA Audit Alert - Vehicle Expenses Audit Project
CRA Audit Project - Reviewing Your Vehicle Expenses The team at GBA have observed an increased number of CRA reviews and audits surrounding vehicle expenses. We normally see a number of these each year, but this year, we feel like it has become a project for CRA to target these expenses, and we feel that it is important enough to not only tell our clients how they can ensure that they are protected, but to tell the general public as well by way of this blog. These expenses can be found in several scenarios with individual and/or corporate taxpayers. With individual taxpayers, if you are using your vehicle as part of your business as a sole proprietor, or as part of employment expenses, your risk of being audited has increased over the past year. So, if one of the above situations applies to you, please continue to read the following as we explain how to audit proof your taxes.
5 Essential QBO Reports You Need For Your Small Business
In this blog, we will be looking at the 6 critical reports that you need to look at to ensure you success with your small business.
7 Questions To Ask When Choosing An Accountant For Your Small Business
Choosing an accountant for your business is one of the most important decisions for you and your business. The right accountant can help you do more than just file your taxes, they can help you grow your business, keep you from increasing your risk of being audited and save you time and money in the end. With that in mind, we created a list of the most important questions you should ask your prospective accountant when the time comes to hire one or change. Do They Have a Designation? In Canada, there use to be 3 different designations that have all amalgamated under the Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) designation. With this designation, you can feel assured that the individual or firm has had to undergo a certain amount of training and education and are regulated by CPA Canada and one of the Provincial organizations as well, such as CPA Ontario. These regulatory bodies give the public some peace of mind as the individual accountant or firm is monitored on a regular basis to uphold the standards in place.
The 27 Common Business Mistakes costing you Money Right Now - Part 5
FATAL MISTAKES? You Must Absolutely, Positively Eliminate From Your Business Right NOW! Here is part 4 of our 5 part series. If you have not read parts 1 - 4, please read those blogs first.
The 27 Common Business Mistakes costing you Money Right Now - Part 4
FATAL MISTAKES? You Must Absolutely, Positively Eliminate From Your Business Right NOW! Here is part 4 of our 5 part series. If you have not read parts 1 - 3, please read those blogs first. Marketing Mistake #6 Failing To Use Testimonials Let?s be honest - selling isn?t easy. Unless a prospect is convinced, the product or service will give them the result they?re seeking, the sale won?t be made. And what people say themselves about their business and their products or services is often taken with a ?pinch of salt?. After all, we are all skeptics these days. So how can you almost instantly prove to the prospect you can deliver on your promises? It?s actually much easier than you may think. All you need to do is use ?customer testimonials?. Again we can?t tell you how often we see businesses trying to sell and market their products or services without the use of testimonials. They make life very, very difficult if they don?t use testimonials. Testimonials have the power to get customers by the bucketful (we also call this ?Social Proof?).
The 27 Common Business Mistakes costing you Money Right Now - Part 3
FATAL MISTAKES? You Must Absolutely, Positively Eliminate From Your Business Right NOW! Here is part 3 of our 5 part series. If you have not read parts 1 and 2, please read those blogs first. Marketing Mistake #2 Not Having A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) This will knock your socks off..... This is by far the most common Marketing Mistake people make. Let us explain?USP is the one thing that differentiates your business from your competitors in the minds of your customers and prospects. The USP is what makes the difference between having a truly outstanding business or merely a good one, or worse still, a poor one. Occasionally the USP already exists in your business ? you just need to discover it and then articulate it in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd. However, in most cases the USP has to be created, often out of ?thin air?. We can?t stress enough how important this is to you. How can you expect your customers to be able to choose you, over and above any of your competitors, if the customers can?t quickly see what it is you do that is so unique and beneficial to them? Outstanding businesses have been founded on a USP alone. For example, here's a very well known USP? "Red hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less - guaranteed." Tom Monahan of Domino?s Pizza created one of the most successful fast-food franchises in the world from the strength of this USP. So did Fred Smith of FedEx (?When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight ? FedEx?).
The 27 Common Financial & Marketing Mistakes That Right Now Are Costing Owner-Managed Businesses $Millions Each Year - Part 2
FATAL MISTAKES? You Must Absolutely, Positively Eliminate From Your Business Right NOW! Here is part 2 of our 5 part series. If you have not read part 1, please read that blog first. Financial Mistake #7 Failing To Account For Regular Expenses Every business should know when it is due to pay its wages, rent, tax and HST and also have a good idea of how much they are going to be. But when it comes time to pay them, they are often the expenses which many business owners simply don?t have the cash flow for, and it?s these expenses which cause many businesses to go under. The reason is partly understandable as these tend to be big bills but it is often a symptom of an internal problem as the business fails to account for them. A cash flow forecast is a fundamental management tool for a business. It is the means by which future bills can be factored into current decisions and help to avoid spending money that ought to be allocated for other uses.
The 27 Common Financial & Marketing Mistakes That Right Now Are Costing Owner-Managed Businesses $Millions Each Year - Part 1
FATAL MISTAKES? You Must Absolutely, Positively Eliminate From Your Business Right NOW! We see it every day. People making these fatal mistakes. And even if they?re not fatal, they are having a massive detrimental effect on a business. It's not that the business owners are doing it on purpose. Of course not. It?s just that these Financial & Marketing Mistakes are being adopted because people simply don't realize that what they're doing is having a catastrophic effect on their businesses. Call it ignorance. Call it lack of knowledge. Lack of professional guidance. Call it what you like. The point is that almost every business is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars because they?re making these mistakes ? without even knowing it! Statistics tell us that 80% of businesses go bust during the first five years. And of those that remain, 80% will not be in business ten years from when they started. That?s a scary but true statistic ? especially when you think these figures don?t include the current difficult economic conditions!
2019 Halton Hills International Women's Day Retreat
The 2019 Halton Hills International Women?s Day Retreat event was hosted by the Halton Hills Women in Business (Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce). The event took place at the Stone Edge Estate Bed & Breakfast in Georgetown on March 8, 2019. GBA LLP Chartered Professional Accountants team members were pleased to attend and share our knowledge about Cloud Based Accounting solutions and give away some cool swag to the many women entrepreneurs in attendance.
It’s Tax Time, and the scammers know that too!
March and April is often a very stressful time for most Canadians. Generally, it is the time of year that we all dread ? preparing our taxes. At GBA, we help thousands of people file their taxes every year, and every year, we get numerous call from our clients often in a panic, asking us questions about messages that they have already received from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Therefore, we thought this would be a good time to address some of the usual questions about scams vs real CRA agents.
