Sole Proprietor or Self-Employed Business Tax Returns

Sole Proprietor or Self-Employed Business Tax Returns

Self-employed business returns pose their own complexity that require the skills of a competent tax professional 


Business Records

As a self-employed individual, you are required by law to keep the records of all your transactions to be able to prove your income and expenses claimed. Keep your original documents such as sales and purchase invoices, receipts, bank deposit slips, bank statements to substantiate your income and expenses.   


Consequences of not keeping adequate record

If you do not keep the necessary records and you do not have other proof, CRA may pursue various methods to assess your income, such as: 

  • CRA may disallow the expenses you deducted. This will definitely result in paying substantially higher taxes as you will not be able to claim your expenses.
  • CRA may determine your income by using other methods.  If done so, you may end up with higher income and tax liability.
  • CRA may also charge you penalties for not keeping the required records and not giving access to the information.

The CRA's arbitrary assessments will usually end up being too costly for you. As such, it cannot be emphasized enough the importance of keeping the original documents to protect yourself from unnecessary and costly results that are preventable.



We can walk you through our step-by-step guidance to collect the required information to prepare your self-employed return in a most tax-efficient way.  Our tax planning advice will help you to minimize your tax liability.


Deadline to file self-employed return

Filing deadline for your self-employed return is June 15 of the year following the tax year. However, the deadline to pay your tax owing is April 30.  If paid late, CRA will apply interest to the balance owing as of April 30.


Contact us today for a free, no-obligation, and confidential consultation to discuss how can we help you on your self-employed business tax matters. 

Take advantage of our free, no-obligation consultancy session and improve your financial life by learning the complexities of your tax matters and the solutions from a professional!