All posts by Nevcon Accounting

Power on / Open today!

We’re happy to report that our power is back on, and we’re back in business today. Be in touch for all your accounting questions and requirements, as usual.

We have our fingers crossed that all friends and colleagues will have their power restored soon. Kudos to the repair and technical folks working hard to get the lights back on everywhere!

Links to key 2022 Federal Budget coverage

Nevcon Accounting is pleased to provide the following links to articles, analyses and more, to help you learn more about the 2022 Federal Budget, delivered April 7, 2022.

Links to key 2021 Federal Budget coverage

Nevcon Accounting is pleased to provide the following links to articles, analyses and more, to help you learn more about the 2021 Federal Budget, delivered April 19, 2021.

GST / HST registration webinars coming April 28, 2021

The Canada Revenue Agency is hosting a free webinar to help businesses determine when and how to register for a GST/HST account. Topics to be discussed in the webinar include:

  • what GST/HST is
  • provincial and territorial GST/HST rates
  • who needs to have a GST/HST account and how to get one
  • taxable supplies
  • GST/HST obligations
  • GST/HST returns, filing deadlines, and payments due dates

This webinar is for you if you’re a:

  • business owner
  • self-employed individual

The webinar is on Wednesday, April 28, 2021, at the following times:

In English

Newfoundland and Labrador
2:30pm
Maritimes
2pm
Quebec, Ontario, Nunavut
1pm
Manitoba, Saskatchewan
12pm
Alberta, Northwest Territories
11am
British Columbia, Yukon
10am

Register now

In French

Newfoundland and Labrador
11:30am
Maritimes
11am
Quebec, Ontario, Nunavut
10am
Manitoba, Saskatchewan
9am
Alberta, Northwest Territories
8am
British Columbia, Yukon
7am

Register now

You’re also invited to submit your questions about GST/HST registration before the webinar takes place. To do so, please visit the registration website on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, between 6:00 am EST and 8:00 pm EDT. We’ll answer as many questions as we can during the webinar.

New product offering – Audit Shield offers peace of mind

Suffice to say, the past year has brought many changes and challenges. One result is that the CRA has stepped up their enforcement efforts with more audits. If you and your business are subject to an audit, this can involve significant cost to you because of the added fees to for Nevcon to respond to such requests.

Audit ShieldWith this in mind, I choose to offer Audit Shield as additional add-on protection for these costs. It might seem like a significant cost when you first look at the pricing, but once you factor in the amount it would cost you for an audit, I hope you’ll see that it’s good and proactive. Audit shield covers up to $10,000 (Cdn) in fees to help you respond to an audit request by CRA.

If you are a current Nevcon Accounting client, you will have received or will soon receive an email message with more details on how you can take advantage of this new offering. The message will spell out more of what they do and do not cover. For small businesses and sole proprietors, it’s a smart business decision.

If you are considering becoming a Nevcon Accounting client and would like to learn more about Audit Shield as part of what we can provide, contact us for more information.

Create effective passwords, manage them well … and sleep better at night!

A recent series of cyberattacks on the Government of Canada web site used a method called “credential stuffing” to compromise the personal information of thousands of Canadians. The attacks shut down Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and GCKey online portals for several days and caused worry and confusion.

Credential stuffing takes advantage of the fact that many people use the same or similar passwords for multiple online accounts. Bearing in mind how vulnerable that could leave you, it might be time to give some good and considered thought to updating and diversifying your passwords to important accounts and services. You can google lots of good advice – here is an article that we think is useful: Top 15 Password Management Best Practices (from Beyond Trust).

On top of creating unique and strong passwords, it’s useful to organize and manage them all. Here are some tools and services we recommend investigating for your password management needs:

Password best practices and management makes for excellent peace of mind!

Keeping you up-to-date on small business news in response to the pandemic

As we’re sure you may have already heard, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made some announcements this morning (March 27, 2020) about additional programs available to support small businesses. What these programs will have to offer could possibly be substantial to you, so we understand completely that you would like to know what this means to you. Unfortunately, the government has not yet released a lot of details, so we’re not able to answer with any accuracy whether you qualify, or whether it will benefit you.

Please bear with us and all of our accounting and bookkeeping colleagues (who are working together and sharing insights) as more information comes out over the next several days. We promise that as we learn more information about what will impact your business, you will be the first to know.

Here is what we do know so far:

  • Temporary Wage Subsidy – Originally introduced at 10% retroactive to March 18th, this new announcement brings the Temporary Wage Subsidy up to 75% retroactive to March 15th. There are no details yet on qualification, caps, or time period.
  • Small Business Loans – Up to $40K, government backed, interest free for one year, up to $10K could be forgiven – is what we know at this point. No additional details have been given as yet.
  • GST/HST Payments – These payments will be eferred until June 1st. Filings are still due, only payments are deferred.
  • Taxes/Duties on Imports – Payments are deferred until June 1st.
  • Bank of Canada has also cut the interest rate – down to 0.25%.

Thank you for your patience as we work to get more information. Wishing you and yours safety and good health as we all make our way through these unprecedented times.

Helping businesses keep their workers – Temporary Wage Subsidy for Employers

The Temporary Wage Subsidy for Employers is a three-month measure that will allow eligible employers to reduce the amount of payroll deductions required to be remitted to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

The following employers are eligible:

  • Employers who are a non-profit organization, registered charity, or a Canadian-controlled private corporation (CCPC);
  • have an existing business number and payroll program account with the CRA on March 18, 2020; and
  • pay salary, wages, bonuses, or other remuneration to an employee.

Note: CCPCs are only eligible for the subsidy if their taxable capital employed in Canada for the preceding taxation year, calculated on an associated group basis, is less than $15 million.

Intuit’s Quickbooks provides some useful information on how to calculate this for your business.