Bookkeeping, Payroll & Sales Tax in Vancouver

Once your taxable revenues pass $30,000 — either in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters — you stop being a small supplier and registration is required. Cross the threshold inside one quarter and your registration takes effect no later than the day of the sale that took you over it, you charge GST on that sale, and you have 29 days from that effective date to register. Cross it over four consecutive quarters without exceeding $30,000 in any single one and you remain a small supplier until the end of the month following that quarter — registration then takes effect no later than your first sale after that, again with 29 days to register. The CRA assigns your reporting period from annual taxable supplies — annual at $1,500,000 or less, quarterly above that up to $6,000,000, monthly above $6,000,000 — and you can elect to file more often than you are assigned, which is worth doing when you are regularly in a refund position.

Only if you're located in BC and, in the ordinary course of your business there, you sell or lease taxable goods or provide a taxable service — software, telecommunications, legal services, online marketplace services and the repair, maintenance or installation of goods are the ones that catch owners out; a business located outside BC can also be required to register for sales to BC customers. The extension of PST to accounting and bookkeeping, architectural, engineering, geoscience, non-residential real estate and security services was to take effect 1 October 2026 — the Province paused it on 18 September 2026, and the exemption is held in place by B.C. Reg. 116/2026, made under Order in Council 408/2026, so read that as paused, not repealed. If you opened a PST account for the expansion, Notice 2026-001 says to cancel it through eTaxBC or by calling 1-877-388-4440. Once you are registered, BC sets your reporting period by how much PST you collect, and the return and payment are due by the last day of the month following the end of that period.

When your BC remuneration for the calendar year goes above your exemption amount — $1,000,000 for an ordinary employer, $1,500,000 for a registered charitable or non-profit one. Associated employers share a single $1,000,000 exemption, so two related companies at $700,000 of BC remuneration each are over the threshold together and both have to register, even though neither is over it alone. Registered charitable and non-profit employers do not share the exemption when they are associated with other employers, and can claim $1,500,000 for each qualifying location where they have more than one. The exemption is prorated if you begin or cease to have a permanent establishment in BC partway through the year, and registration is due by December 31 of the first calendar year you are required to pay the tax.

For a regular remitter, the CRA has to receive the deductions by the 15th day of the month after the month you paid your employees — so September pay means an October 15 remittance, moving to the next business day when the 15th falls on a weekend or a public holiday. You are a regular remitter where your average monthly withholding amount in the calendar year before the previous one was under $25,000; from $25,000 to $99,999.99 you remit up to twice a month, and at $100,000 or more up to four times a month. If that average was under $3,000 and your withholding, remitting and filing record has been clean for the preceding 12 months you can be a quarterly remitter instead — due April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15 — and a new employer withholding under $1,000 a month with a clean record can start there. The CRA assigns the remitter type, so it is worth confirming which one you are actually on rather than assuming; the T4 slips and T4 summary are separate, and due by the last day of February after the calendar year.

Yes. Under section 227.1 of the Income Tax Act, directors at the time the corporation was required to deduct, withhold, remit or pay are jointly and severally liable with it for the amount, together with interest and penalties. Before the CRA can assess a director, one of three things must have happened: a certificate for the corporation's liability has been registered in the Federal Court under section 223 and execution returned unsatisfied; or the corporation commenced liquidation or dissolution proceedings or was dissolved and the claim was proved within six months; or it made an assignment or had a bankruptcy order made against it and the claim was proved within six months — and no proceedings can start more than two years after the person last ceased to be a director. There is a due-diligence defence where you exercised the degree of care, diligence and skill a reasonably prudent person would have in comparable circumstances, and the CRA's own guidance points to withholdings kept in a separate account and regular confirmation that each remittance actually went out. Whether that defence is available turns on the particular facts and is a legal question, so if the CRA has raised director liability with you, get legal advice alongside your accounting.

Yes, if you pay yourself a salary. Paying salaries, wages, bonuses, vacation pay or tips, or providing certain taxable benefits, is what makes you an employer, and the payroll program account has to be open before your first remittance due date — being the owner changes nothing about that. One thing does change: employment is not insurable where the employee controls more than 40% of the voting shares of the corporate employer, so a controlling shareholder-employee has income tax and CPP withheld but no EI premiums.