Tax season is now officially on as CRA will officially start accepting tax returns filed through the EFile system this week. At our firm, we will start the filing process in the first week of March as employers have a Feb 28 deadline to file all income slips for their employees. Regardless, we are ready for you…are you ready? This past weekend, we attended the Black Physicians Association of Ontario (BPAO) annual symposium in Downtown Toronto. It was great to meet new faces and to reconnect with clients and other partners in Black health. It was a special session as my daughter, Hallie, worked on a research project with Dr. O. of Healthcaring Differently and she and her fellow researcher presented their research findings to the BPAO members. In this issue, I discuss personal taxes and I invite you to a webinar on corporate taxes and how to use a business structure to plan and build tax-efficient wealth. I also share other useful insights. Enjoy this issue and please remember to share this with everyone in your network:

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1. Are You Ready To File Your Personal Tax Returns?

In the recent survey I completed on personal income taxes, 47% of you said you will be filing your taxes yourself, while another 24% plan to use a friend to help file their taxes. As technology continues to improve, we believe that this trend will continue to grow in the coming years. The truth is that filing personal taxes is not the hard part. What may be challenging is getting the appropriate insights from your tax returns that will enable you plan better going forward. As you file your tax returns this year, here are some questions to consider:

• What’s the dollar amount I paid in taxes?
• What’s my average tax rate?
• What’s my marginal tax rate?
• Why did I get a refund? Why did I NOT get a refund?

And when you have answers to these questions following the filing of your tax returns, you want to consider your next action steps. For example, what steps can you take in 2025 to pay less taxes than you did in 2024? This is where insights come in handy. As I’ve said many times, when you don’t get insights, you end up paying more in taxes than you’re required to and a dollar lost in taxes today will not only cost you a dollar today, IT WILL COST YOU A MULTIPLE OF THAT DOLLAR OVER TIME!

If you’re looking for INSIGHTS to help you minimize taxes, then consider the Personal Tax Services we offer. With our services, we can help you minimize taxes, improve cash flow and get ahead financially. Get the details here.

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2. A FREE Webinar On Corporate Taxes & Tax Planning with a Business Structure

Join us for a special webinar as we share relevant information on how to effectively use your corporation as a tool for tax planning. Whether you’re a new business owner or an existing business owner, you will get many insights on the pros and cons of owning a corporation. During the webinar, we will share the following:

• Pros and cons of using a corporate structure for business
• Legal and compliance requirements for corporations
• Provincial and Federal compliance obligations
• HST and Payroll best practices and compliance requirements
• Compensation strategies for corporate owners
• What’s new for the 2024 & 2025 corporate tax filing season
• General tax planning strategies for corporations and their owners
• And many more insights on how to minimize taxes and build tax-efficient wealth using a corporation

When: Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Time: 5 PM Sharp

Where: Online

To register for the webinar, go to: gmscpa.ca/corporatetax​

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3. Do You Own A Corporation With A December 31 Year-end?

As some of you may know, we provide a number of services for corporate clients and it’s that time of the year when corporations with a December year-end should start organizing their documents to compile their financial results, estimate taxes, plan their cash flow for the new year and several other things. While we obviously help corporations with the tax compliance work of filing their annual corporate tax returns, we do provide other additional value-added services such as:

• Streamlining and automating the majority of your bookkeeping processes
• Doing a cash flow and budget analysis for your corporation
• Estimating corporate tax liability and developing a plan for installment payment of your taxes
• Corporate tax planning including how to invest corporate dollars and how to properly use insurance within your business to mitigate risk and plan for retirement
• Corporate restructuring to ensure you’re organized in the most tax-efficient way
• Remuneration planning to ensure you’re taking money out of your corporation in the most tax-efficient manner
• How to use your corporation as a nest egg for your retirement in a tax-efficient manner.
• And many more…

If you’re looking for solutions for your corporation consider working with me and my team at GMS Chartered Professional Accountants LLP. I invite you to book a complimentary time to chat with me here.

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4. 20 Quotes To Inspire You To Invest In Yourself

I believe that the best investment you can ever make is an investment in yourself. If you realize that you’re the #1 asset in anything you do, then you will begin to prioritize investment in yourself.

And this is why.

If you’re employed, you were for a reason — for the special skill you possess. So you must keep investing in yourself to stay on top of your game if you want to keep getting promoted and keep getting higher bonuses.

If you own a business, you are the business. You make all the critical decisions. You hire the best people. You are the top sales and marketing guru in your business. So, if you want to keep generating higher and higher income, you have to stay on top of your business by investing in yourself.

If you don’t invest in yourself, no one will. You invest in yourself by:

• Learning and growing in your knowledge in critical areas.
• Learning how to learn.
• Hiring coaches and mentors to collapse time and avoid costly mistakes.
• Growing in your spirituality.
• Mastering the mindset of successful people.
• Mastering how to effectively build relationships and how to work with people.
• Learning how to build communities and how to build a movement.

It is suggested that you invest at least 10% of your gross earnings in yourself. Often times, if done correctly, this investment will yield rewards that are multiple times what you invested. That is the power of investing in yourself. In this article, I share 20 quotes to inspire you to invest in yourself. Read the full article here.

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5. What is a Perfect Investment?

In this short video, I discuss my top 10 characteristics for the perfect investment/financial vehicle and I also evaluate different investment vehicles against these top characteristics. This video is an excerpt of the full video I shared with members of our Tax-Efficient Wealth Membership Network. So, to watch the full video and other useful resources, you will have to join our membership here.