If you are in the travel business and are either self-employed or have employees. You should consider how you are paying yourself and/or your employees.
You have the option to pay yourself a regular wage and bonuses. The advantage for you as a business owner to be on a wage is that you will contribute to CPP for your retirement years. EI is an option that you do not have to exercise as the business is yours and collecting on EI may not be something you will ever do. The other advantage is that you are deducting personal taxes on a regular basis rather than at the end of the year when you receive dividends. If throughout the year your business is doing well financially you may want to pay yourself bonuses as the year progresses in order to reduce your corporate tax. You should consult your accountant and receive professional advice on the best way to go about your income.
If you have employees either full time, part time or casual you will need to make sure you deduct the mandatory deductions off of their pay and submit your Remittance to Revenue Canada on time to avoid any late payment penalties. If you have staff members who are paid for their specialty services and may not be paid either by salary or hourly but rather by the services they provide, these specialized members must be paid as an employee with normal payroll deductions. If however this specialist is not happy with the employee deduction system then this employee can apply for a special exemption by completing form CTP#1 which can be printed off of Revenue Canada’s website at www.cra.gc.ca .You must however treat this specialist as an employee until such time as Revenue Canada either approves or rejects the CTP#1 application. It is always wise to have a letter of agreement between you and your specialized workers to protect yourself from any comebacks regarding payroll.
You have to consider your time when you are doing your own payroll. Do you have the time to do payroll on a regular basis? Do you have the time and knowledge to do your own Remittances, Record of Employment, T4 slips, and T5 summaries? Do you have the time to find payroll answers to questions from your staff regarding their pay? Do you have time to write payroll cheques to each staff member and to yourself? For a very small fee A1 Payroll Services will do all this for you. It does not cost you anything to ask and receive a quote from us. Try us and you will be pleased with the time and money we can save you.