Everything You Need to Know About Prepping for Your First Income Tax Bill
/How it works
Becoming an entrepreneur involves tackling a steep learning curve – no doubt about it. But the steepest curve of all may come from figuring out how taxes work.
It’s relatively easy to understand as an employee. You go to work, get a paycheque every two weeks and there’s not a whole lot else to consider.
Self-employment is an entirely different game. You work hard and earn revenue throughout the year. You’ve also got to pay for all your own expenses. Then at the end of the year you still owe taxes to the CRA. You may be asking, “How is that fair?”
Well, since there’s no income tax being withheld from your income every two weeks, you’re going to owe a lump sum at the end of the year (or several lump sums throughout the year) to compensate for this.
This is where things get a bit tricky. You’ll be accumulating extra money that you may have to pay back to the CRA, so it’s not really yours to spend. You wouldn’t want to get into a situation where you spend EVERYTHING you bring in, and end up with no money left to pay your tax bill.
Here’s what you should do
Like anything in life, preparedness is key. You want to have enough money set aside to ensure you can pay your income tax bill.
A good rule of thumb when you’re first starting out is to set aside ~20% of your revenue.
One way to keep things organized is to use a separate bank account. On a relatively frequent basis (once a month for example), you can transfer 20% of your income revenue made for that month to a separate bank account. This way the money is completely isolated and there’s no chance you’ll spend it.
For those of you with a bit more [spending] self control, you can use your primary bank account. If you chose this method, you need to keep an ongoing record of how much money you want to keep in the account for your tax bill. Then you’ll have to ensure you don’t spend it! The best tool to help you out with bookkeeping is our Healthy Wealth Tracker - free for HBA clients,
Do I always owe income tax?
If your expenses (what you spend) add up to a higher amount than your revenue (what you make) for the year, you won’t owe any income tax. This means you spent more money on your business than you made. That’s relatively common for practitioners in their first few years.
But moving forward, you can see income tax is a good problem to have! It means your revenue (what you make) is higher than your expenses (what you spend), which translates into you making money!
Are there ways to offset the income tax I owe?"
For your first year (or two, depending on the month you start practising) of filing taxes, you likely won’t owe any income tax. Why?
Expenses offset your income tax: The expenses you accumulate (aka the money you spend to run your practice) will be used to lower the income tax you owe. It’s common in your first year to have more expenses than revenue, especially if you’ve only worked a couple months during the year.
Tuition credits offset your income tax: If your expenses don’t completely offset your income tax, you can also use tuition credits you’ve accumulated to offset it further. For every dollar of tuition you paid, you can earn a dollar tax-free. This means for a lot of practitioners, their first couple years in practice can be income tax-free due to these credits.
As your revenue increases (the money you make), the income tax you owe will increase as well.
After the first couple of years you’ll run out of tuition credits. Then what?
There’s a variety of options to reduce the amount of income tax you owe further. Savings options like TFSAs (Tax Free Savings Accounts), RRSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plans) and incorporating your practice each offer unique advantages for this.
It’s important to remember your needs (and the ways you would reduce your income tax bill) as a self employed individual are different than employees. When we work with our clients to create opportunities to lower their income tax, we look at their life holistically to understand which is best for them and their family.