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by kazinator 3584 days ago
> It is tough, income is still less than I what I made in my cushy job

But you have more ways to avoid taxes (both legal and not so much). If you get paid cash for anything, you may be able to conceal the income. You can creatively shuffle losses into the limited liability corporation, to avoid being personally affected, and basically just sock it to whomever the corporation owes.

Self-employed people typically have way more ways to write off expenses.

In Canada, if you're an employee, you don't get to write off anything. Drive to work? Can't write off gas or car repairs as a business expense. Work from home a lot? Sorry, can't write off any portion of your rent or mortgage. All that changes if you're self-employed; you can write off every this and that: transportation; the proportion of your home that is your office. On the yearly tax return form, all employees can claim a meager little "employment amount": a token sum compensating them for their inability to write off anything.

2 comments

I think you are being downvoted because of the "you may be able to conceal the income" part. You don't want to do that specially when running an online business (which is never cash based). Everything has a trail and you need to try and manage all records correctly.

But yes, you have some ways to get some deductions for your business and write off a few things like meal expenses for client visit etc. But you cannot directly conceal income. That is almost a sure way of inviting the Tax Police/IRS.

At the end of the day, it is not so much about deductions for me. I still make less cash than my job (so far at least) even after deductions. It is more about the freedom of doing what I want to do.

While you cannot simply "write off" your drive and mortgage [as an employee in Canada]; depending on details, you CAN mitigate some of the taxes through your home office etc if your employer fills out t2200 in a way that benefits you.

(I am completely NOT a lawyer or accountant; but an IT worker and this is what my accountant does for me; your milleage and circumstances may vary :)

See sections 7, 9 and 10: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t2200/README.html