Is there such thing as a Limited Liability Corporation in Canada? I did some google searches and came up with a Corporation - is that the same thing? What did you guys do that are running Canadian Companies as far as registering your business? Did you need to register to have a business bank account? Also would any companies give you a line of credit when you were still fairly new without any real assets? Any help would be appreciated as things are moving pretty fast and I don't want to get stuck paying GST if I reach the $30,000 mark. Also how did you guys pay employees or did you just do it under the table sort of thing? I am talking about a part time tech support person working in another country? Thanks for all the info, if someone is very well versed in these things could you please PM me. I know I should talk to an accountant and/or lawyer but I live in a small town and their is basically 2 old accountants here. Thanks in advance for any help.

Greeting,

Yes "Corporation" is the term to be used in Canada. It also depends on your province; a bit different.

For the rest, ask financial advisors :)

do you know if most Chartered Accountants know anything about internet business as well as dealing so much across borders and such? I bet I do 75% of business with US companies or US clients and about 20% with UK and Middle East. If not do you know where I can find people that do know about this?

I live in London Ontario, what are some good Canadian web sites that can help with getting your business into a Corporation?

- Eddy

Originally posted by sirgamesalot
I live in London Ontario, what are some good Canadian web sites that can help with getting your business into a Corporation?

- Eddy

The best thing to do is to talk to a lawyer that deals in this sort of thing.
There are provincial and federal corporations. Federal are actually cheaper in price and your protection is the same.

Explain what you do and what your reasons for incorporating are. They cost about $1000.00 -$12000.00 depending on what the legal fee's run you.

It costs $1000-$12000 to be incorporated? What other options do we have in Canada?

is that between 1 thousand and 12 thousand?

If you do it on your own you're looking at about 1k

You can incorporate yourself for around $600 online and save the lawyer fees. You can buy a book in incorporating and law that will help you with filing for your articles of incorporation (ie. shares, etc).

You can then register different divisions if needed.

Once you Inc. go to your bank and open up a corporate account. Apply for your Visa as well.

Next, if you're revenue is under $30 000 CAD, don't worry about GST registration or collecting it. Should you approach $30K, register for GST and you need to charge your Canadian customers GST.

You will get different answers with regards to what/where/when/how you charge GST, but you should be ok with the method suggested above. Just be sure to let people know GST is either included or added to the cost and to place your GST # on the invoice.

Keep proper records and you should be fine :) Good luck.

You can pick up a $30 kit from Chapters and pay the $300 incorporation fee if you want to do it yourself. All a lawyer does is print out the same template and sign it. Just something to keep in mind.

And with GST you need to charge it only to Canadian Customers, not everyone.

You'll also need to check with WCB if you have employees, even if they are working from their homes you can get them covered cheaply and save any future hassles should they slip grabbing coffee or something :)

Registering for GST is pretty easy, it's also based on gross sales so it can be quite easy to meet the $30k limit if you're not careful and it's based on last 4 quarters as well.

Get a bookkeeper/accountant early on and you'll be much better off in the long run. And keep receipts for everything, even stupid stuff, you'll be amazed what can be a write off or can help get your taxes down more, I built a fence in my yard last year and that was deductible, heck toilet paper can be deductible too. Make sure you set aside space at home for "home office" to allow writing off a good chunk of home expenses.

Oh yeah, Internet access is a write off too! :)

check this out sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/incorporation/ and
http://www.companiesinc.com/canada/?s=g6

thanks

"Official" corporation info:
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/incd-dgc.nsf/en/h_cs01914e.html

What about line of credit? Were any of you able to get one as a hosting business when really you have no assets? My problem is the time between renting out a server to a client and the time it takes to get to my bank. Because no one wants to really wait that long I pay with my credit card then wait the week or two to get the money. I'd rather have a line of credit and be able to directi deposit to the server company then when the payment finally gets to me pay it off and keep the extra. How do you all deal with this? Or did you start off with tens of thousands of dollars in the bank?