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Gondaliya CPA

Incorporation & First-Hire Specialists

Tax Accountant for Delivery Businesses in Ontario and Across Canada

There is a day when the thing you have been doing stops being a job and starts being a company, and almost nobody notices it while it is happening. A second van arrives. Somebody else begins driving one of them. A customer asks to be invoiced monthly instead of paying at the door. Two questions decide what that costs you. The first is whether a corporation is worth having yet, and the honest answer is that its central benefit — roughly 12.2% Ontario tax on the first $500,000 a business earns actively, against 53.53% at the top personal rate — reaches only the profit you leave behind in it. Draw every dollar out to live on and you have bought a T2, a second set of books and a yearly bill for nothing. The second question is how the van, the handling equipment and the list of customers who already call you get inside the company without a tax bill on the way in, and the answer is an election under section 85 of the Income Tax Act filed on Form T2057. We price both questions honestly before either one is sold to you, set the opening capital cost schedule from the undepreciated capital cost your van already carries, and switch payroll on properly the week your first driver starts. AFFORDABLE flat fees.

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AFFORDABLE Delivery Business Tax Accountant

Most advice written for people who drive for a living assumes you are still only driving. This page assumes you are not. You have somebody else behind a wheel, or you are about to, and the arrangement that worked perfectly well when it was one person, one van and a chequebook now has a remittance schedule attached to it, a set of records somebody will eventually ask to see, and possibly a tax structure that is costing you money for no reason. Start with the part nobody leads with: incorporating defers tax only on profit that stays inside the company. An owner who takes out everything the business makes, because that is what the mortgage needs, defers nothing at all — and has still acquired a corporate return, a separate general ledger and an annual cost that did not exist before. We would rather tell you to wait a year than sell you a shell you do not need yet.

When the numbers do point the other way, the interesting work is the crossing itself. Everything you already own has a tax history: the van carries an undepreciated capital cost, not a sticker price, and the customers who ring you have become goodwill with real value. Handing all of it to a company you own looks, without an election, like selling it at what it would fetch. Section 85 and Form T2057 are what let each item cross at an elected amount instead. Get the opening schedule right on day one and it is right every year afterwards; get it wrong and you repeat the error until somebody rebuilds it. At Gondaliya CPA we do the break-even arithmetic, the election, the opening balance sheet, the payroll setup and the yearly salary-and-dividend decision, at flat fees you agree to before we start.

Tell us where the business actually is, and we will tell you which of these you genuinely need this year.

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Accounting That Understands How a Delivery Business Actually Works

Growing out of one van is not a single decision, it is about six of them arriving at once. Whether a corporation earns its keep yet. How the van and the customer list get inside it. What the second driver switches on the day they are paid. Whether the company needs its own HST registration. Whether this year should be salary or dividends. And who keeps which set of records for how long. We work through them in that order, with the arithmetic in front of you, for owners across the GTA and all of Ontario.

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The Crossing Point

One van and a chequebook needs almost nothing. Two vans, a paid driver and a customer on thirty-day terms needs a remittance schedule, a ledger and possibly a corporation. The change is gradual; the obligations are not.

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Section 85 on Form T2057

Moving your van, handling equipment and customer list into a company you own would ordinarily be treated as a sale at fair market value, taxing the gain built up so far. An election under section 85, filed on Form T2057, moves them at an elected amount instead.

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The Van Brings Its History

What follows the van into the corporation is the undepreciated capital cost left in it, rather than the price on the original invoice. Ordinary working vehicles depreciate together in one pool, Class 10, at 30%. Any vehicle that cost more than the prescribed limit for the year it was acquired is kept apart in a Class 10.1 of its own, also at 30%.

👤

The First Person You Pay

A payroll account opens, income tax, CPP and EI come off each cheque and go in on a PD7A, WSIB applies from that first hire, and T4 slips together with a T4 Summary are filed by the last day of February.

Stay Compliant and Minimize Your Delivery Business Tax

In the year you incorporate and the year you first hire, almost every mistake we are asked to fix afterwards was made in the opening weeks — an asset brought in at the wrong figure, a registration nobody dealt with, a first remittance sent late. Getting those weeks right is cheaper than correcting them, and it is most of what we do here.

🧾

HST at 13% and a Company That Is New

Delivering goods in Ontario is a taxable supply under the Excise Tax Act at 13%, and registration stops being optional once four consecutive calendar quarters have produced $30,000 of taxable revenue between them. Incorporating does not carry your registration across with the van. The corporation is a separate person in the GST/HST system, and its own registration position has to be dealt with deliberately when it is set up rather than assumed — which way it should be handled depends on facts we go through with you. Input tax credits on the van, the fuel, the repairs, the racking and the phone all belong to whichever person actually incurred the cost, so the transfer date matters to the return as much as it matters to the balance sheet.

📚

Two Sets of Books, Six Years Each

Under ITA 230 you keep six years of books and records able to support the returns you have already filed. Incorporating does not replace your old records with new ones; it gives you two sets. The proprietorship’s ledger runs up to the transfer and has to stand on its own afterwards, and the corporation’s starts the day it exists. We keep both, and we keep the opening entries that link them, because the link is the part that gets questioned. Under ITA 152(7) CRA is not obliged to accept a return as filed and may assess the tax it considers payable, which is simply a reason to be able to produce the supporting documents.

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The First Year-End of a New Company

A first corporate year-end is more work than the ones after it, because nothing is carried forward. There is an opening balance sheet to build from the election, a capital cost schedule that starts from undepreciated capital cost rather than purchase price, equipment loans to split between current and long-term, and a T2 whose GIFI has to agree with a ledger that is a few months old. Where a lender is looking at a second van, add compiled financial statements to that list. We produce all of it to a date you can plan around.

Accounting & Tax Experts for Delivery Businesses

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Why Choose Our Accounting Services for Delivery Businesses?

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🎯

Tax Planning — Does a Corporation Pay Yet?

We build the break-even from your own numbers: what the business earns, what you have to withdraw to live, and therefore how much is actually left to defer. If the answer is nothing, we say so and quote you for a T1 instead. If the answer is real, the deferral is worth roughly the gap between 12.2% and your personal rate, until it is paid out.

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Consulting — The Election and the Opening Books

We identify what is actually crossing into the company — van, dollies, racking, phone, and the goodwill in your customer list — agree an elected amount for each, prepare the section 85 election on Form T2057, and build the opening balance sheet and capital cost schedule from it so the first T2 starts from something defensible.

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CRA Representation — Opening Figures and Payroll

The two things questioned on a young delivery corporation are the figures assets came in at and whether the payroll account was run properly from the first cheque. We hold the working papers for both. Where a penalty grew out of circumstances you did not control, Form RC4288 is the taxpayer relief route and we prepare it.

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Bookkeeping — Two Ledgers and a Payroll

From the transfer date we run the corporation’s books and close out the proprietorship’s cleanly, so the two never blur. Driver payroll goes on a proper cycle with WSIB from the first hire, remittances on the PD7A, and T4 slips reconciled to what was actually sent before the February deadline.

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Delivery Business Tax and Accounting Services in Ontario

📄

Corporate Tax Filing (T2) for Delivery Businesses

A first T2 with GIFI built from an opening balance sheet that did not exist a year earlier, a Schedule 8 starting from undepreciated capital cost, and every figure tied to a working paper.

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Bookkeeping & Accounting for Delivery Businesses

Two ledgers handled properly: the proprietorship closed out to the transfer date and the corporation opened from it, with monthly reporting you can read in ten minutes.

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Payroll Services for Delivery Businesses

Payroll from your first driver onward — income tax, CPP and EI withheld, PD7A remittances, WSIB, T4 slips and the T4 Summary reconciled before the February deadline.

🧾

GST/HST Filing for Delivery Businesses

AFFORDABLE HST work on delivery revenue taxable at 13% in Ontario, with the corporation’s own registration position settled at incorporation rather than assumed, and input tax credits claimed by the right person.

📈

Tax Planning for Delivery Businesses

The break-even on incorporating, the elected amounts on the way in, the salary and dividend decision each year, and the $1.25 million exemption in ITA 110.6 kept in view for a later sale of shares.

⏳

Corporate Catch-Up Filing for Delivery Businesses

Overdue T2 and HST years brought forward in order, with the opening figures reconstructed from purchase invoices and bank records rather than guessed at.

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CRA Audit Resolution for Delivery Businesses

Support when CRA questions what your assets came into the company at, how the goodwill was valued, or whether payroll was remitted properly from the first pay run.

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CPA Financial Statements (Notice to Reader) for Delivery Businesses

Compiled statements a lender or a lessor will accept when the second or third van needs financing and your corporation has barely any history.

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Incorporation Services for Delivery Businesses

Incorporation done in the right order: the arithmetic first, then the company, then the section 85 election on Form T2057 that carries your van, equipment and customer list inside it.

📒

Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services for Delivery Businesses

Months of missing invoices, fuel receipts, repair bills and pay records rebuilt into books that support what you filed and survive being looked at.

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US Corporation & LLC Tax Filing for Delivery Businesses

Filing help where delivery work reaches into the United States or a US entity was set up at some point, covering the US corporation and LLC returns and the treaty position that goes with them.

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Voluntary Disclosure Program for Delivery Businesses

A Voluntary Disclosures Program submission on Form RC199 to correct income, HST or slips that were never reported — made before CRA raises it, which is the whole point of the programme.

Accounting & Tax Services Tailored for Delivery Businesses

Written for the owner who has stopped being only a driver — one van becoming two, a first employee, a corporation that may or may not be worth having yet, and a set of records that now has to hold up.

  • Your first T2 has no prior year to lean on, so we build the opening balance sheet from the transfer itself and tie the GIFI schedules to it, rather than to a trial balance somebody assembled afterwards from memory and a bank feed.
  • We start Schedule 8 from the undepreciated capital cost your van actually carried into the company, not its purchase price. On one Ajax operator that single correction moved $11,400 of depreciation into the years it belonged in.
  • Where a vehicle was sold or traded rather than transferred, ITA 13(1) brings the excess of proceeds over undepreciated capital cost back into income, and we calculate that before the year closes so it is never a surprise in March.
  • Working vehicles belong in Class 10 at 30%, one costing more than the prescribed limit for its year of acquisition gets a Class 10.1 at 30% to itself, handling equipment is Class 8 at 20%, and phones and tablets are Class 50 at 55%.
  • Every figure on the return traces to a document we hold, because a young corporation with a transfer in its first year is exactly the file where somebody eventually asks how the opening numbers were arrived at.
  • The proprietorship does not stop existing. We close its ledger at the transfer date, leave it able to stand for the six years ITA 230 asks for, and open the corporation’s books from the election rather than from the first bank deposit.
  • Revenue recorded when a customer is invoiced rather than when they eventually pay is the change most owners find hardest, and it is the change that tells you whether the second van is earning. We set the cutoffs and hold to them.
  • Fuel, repairs, tires, insurance and the racking bolted into the van each get coded somewhere deliberate. On one Milton file, three years of undifferentiated card spending resolved into $8,700 of vehicle costs that had never been claimed.
  • We reconcile the payroll ledger to what was actually remitted rather than to what the software intended, monthly, because the February reconciliation of T4 slips to PD7A remittances is far cheaper when it has been true all year.
  • You get a monthly statement short enough to read: what came in, what the vans cost, what the drivers cost, and how much profit is genuinely available to leave in the company rather than to withdraw.
  • The first person you pay switches on a payroll account, and from that point income tax, CPP and EI come off each cheque and are remitted on the PD7A. Late remittance carries a graduated penalty reaching 10%, so the schedule matters.
  • Your T4 slips and T4 Summary are due by the last day of February, and the filing only works if their totals already agree with the money that actually left your account. We check that monthly, not in February.
  • WSIB coverage applies from that first hire, not from some later size threshold, and we register you rather than leaving it until an injury makes the question urgent. One Orangeville owner closed an eleven-month gap for $1,900 of back premiums.
  • Whether that first driver is genuinely an employee or genuinely in business on their own account is decided on the facts of the arrangement, and it is worth settling in writing first; our Courier Companies page works that determination through properly.
  • Ontario Employer Health Tax only engages once payroll passes $1,000,000, which one driver will not reach, so we tell you plainly that it is not your problem yet and note the year it is likely to become one.
  • Delivering goods in Ontario is a taxable supply at 13%, and the duty to register arrives when any four consecutive calendar quarters add up to $30,000 of taxable revenue. We track you toward that line rather than discovering you crossed it two years ago.
  • Your corporation is a new person for GST/HST and does not inherit your registration with the van. That has to be dealt with deliberately when the company is set up; we work through which handling fits your facts rather than assuming one.
  • Input tax credits belong to whichever person incurred the cost, so the transfer date decides which return a van, a repair or a fuel card lands on. One Ajax file recovered $6,200 of credits that had been claimed by the wrong entity.
  • We reconcile each HST period back to the revenue in the ledger and to the T2, so the two filings tell the same story. Mismatches between them are among the cheapest things CRA can notice and the most annoying to explain.
  • If you registered voluntarily below the threshold, we check yearly whether that still pays. With a van, fuel and repairs on the cost side, it usually does; we show you the arithmetic rather than asserting it.
  • We calculate the deferral you would actually get, which means profit minus what you must withdraw to live. For one Milton owner drawing everything out, the honest answer was that incorporating would have cost roughly $2,400 a year and saved nothing.
  • When profit does stay behind, the gap between about 12.2% inside an Ontario company on its first $500,000 of active earnings and 53.53% at the top personal rate is worth planning around. It is a deferral until the money comes out, not a permanent saving.
  • Salary against dividends is settled each year on that year’s facts, not once at incorporation. Salary builds RRSP room and counts toward CPP where dividends do neither, and which of those trades you want shifts as your age and your borrowing do.
  • A spouse who genuinely works in the business can be paid for that work, measured under ITA 67 against what an arm’s length person doing the same job would have been paid. We document the role and the hours at the time, not later.
  • We keep the $1.25 million exemption in ITA 110.6 in view, because it attaches to shares of a qualifying small business corporation and is simply unavailable to somebody who owns a van personally and has nothing to sell but the van.
  • Overdue years get filed in sequence, because each one’s closing capital cost balances are the next one’s opening balances. Filing the most recent year first and working backwards is how people end up with three inconsistent returns.
  • Where the corporation was set up years ago and the transfer of your van was never documented, we reconstruct what came in and at what figure from purchase invoices, loan papers and the old proprietorship ledger before touching a return.
  • Missing HST periods are rebuilt alongside the T2 years so the two agree. One Orangeville company had four unfiled quarters and a T2 claiming revenue it had never reported; resolving both together corrected $31,000 of turnover.
  • Interest runs while returns are outstanding, and it runs on the balance rather than on your intentions, so the fastest genuine saving in a catch-up file is almost always simply getting the oldest year filed.
  • Where the penalties came from circumstances outside your control rather than from choosing not to file, we prepare the taxpayer relief request on Form RC4288 with the supporting facts attached, and we tell you honestly how strong it looks.
  • The question we answer most often on a young delivery corporation is what the assets came in at and why. Because we keep the election working papers and the valuation reasoning, that answer takes a letter rather than a project.
  • Where goodwill in a customer list was part of what moved across, we hold the basis on which its value was arrived at. An Ajax review closed on the strength of that file alone with $14,000 of proposed adjustments withdrawn.
  • Payroll reviews compare what you withheld to what you remitted, cheque by cheque. We reconstruct the trail where the bookkeeping was thin and negotiate on the arithmetic rather than arguing about the principle.
  • Under ITA 152(7) CRA may assess the tax it considers payable whether or not you have filed as it expects, which is precisely why the supporting documents matter more than the explanation. We assemble them first.
  • We answer correspondence within its deadlines and keep you out of the exchange, so a routine query stays routine. On one Milton file that discipline kept a two-question review from becoming a full examination.
  • A Notice to Reader compilation is what a lender or a leasing company asks for when you want a second or third van financed and your corporation has almost no history to show them.
  • It is not an audit and it is not a review, and it says so on its face; we explain that distinction to you before you take it to a lender, so nobody is surprised by what the engagement does and does not assert.
  • We compile from books that have already been reconciled, so the statements agree with the T2 and the HST returns. Lenders notice when the three disagree, and the credit decision gets slower rather than kinder.
  • Equipment is presented at net book value with the loans split between current and long-term, which for a delivery company with two financed vans is most of what a lender actually looks at on the balance sheet.
  • One Orangeville owner had been turned down twice on paperwork alone; compiled statements for two years, tied to filed returns, got a $54,000 vehicle facility approved on the third attempt.
  • We do the arithmetic before the incorporation, in that order, and we are willing to tell you to wait. A corporation you do not need yet costs a T2, a second ledger and a yearly fee, and defers nothing if you withdraw everything.
  • When it does make sense, we incorporate, set the share structure, and prepare the section 85 election on Form T2057 so the van, the handling equipment and the customer list cross at an elected amount rather than at what they would fetch.
  • The election has to be filed — it is not automatic, and a transfer that merely happened in practice is not a transfer that was elected on. We prepare and file it as part of the incorporation, not as an afterthought the following spring.
  • Goodwill built up while you were a sole proprietor is an asset with a value. It moves with the business and it forms part of what the election covers, and pretending it is worth nothing is not a position we will put our name to.
  • We set the opening capital cost schedule from the undepreciated capital cost carried in, because that schedule repeats itself every year afterwards. One Ajax incorporation preserved $18,600 of remaining depreciation this way.
  • We rebuild from source: bank statements, card statements, fuel receipts, repair invoices and whatever the customers paid on. Months of nothing become a ledger that supports what was filed, which is what ITA 230 actually asks of you.
  • Where the proprietorship and the corporation have been running through one account since the transfer — which is common and fixable — we separate them by date and by transaction so each has its own defensible six-year record.
  • Pay records get rebuilt too, because a driver paid cash in hand for six months is a payroll problem before it is a bookkeeping one, and we would rather find it than have a reviewer find it.
  • On one Milton delivery company, eighteen months of unrecorded vehicle and equipment spending rebuilt into $22,300 of supportable deductions and a capital cost schedule that had simply never been started.
  • You end with books that are current, a clear opening position for the corporation, and a list from us of the three habits that will keep them that way without you employing anybody to do it.
  • If your delivery work reaches into the United States, or a US entity was set up at some point and never dealt with, the filing obligations there do not wait for the Canadian ones to be finished. We handle both sides on one timeline.
  • US corporation and LLC returns are prepared alongside your T2 so the same profit is not described two different ways in two countries, which is the error that turns a small cross-border question into a long one.
  • We set out the treaty position in writing and keep it with the file, because the useful time to be able to explain why a dollar was taxed where it was taxed is before anybody asks rather than afterwards.
  • An LLC that made sense to somebody in 2019 is often the wrong wrapper for a Canadian owner now. We tell you what unwinding it would cost against what keeping it costs, with both numbers on the page.
  • One Orangeville owner with a dormant US entity behind a single contract was spending $3,900 a year on returns for a structure earning nothing; closing it out properly ended the cost without leaving a loose end.
  • A Voluntary Disclosures Program submission goes in on Form RC199, and its entire value rests on being made before CRA raises the matter with you. Once a letter has arrived, the door this programme opens is substantially narrower.
  • We disclose what was actually missed — cash jobs that never reached a deposit, HST never charged on delivery revenue, slips never issued to somebody you paid — and present the supporting records with it rather than a summary.
  • Relief from penalties is the point of a properly made disclosure, and interest treatment is dealt with as part of it. We tell you what relief your facts support before you commit to the submission, not after.
  • A disclosure has to be complete to be worth making. On one Ajax file, folding three unreported years and $47,000 of turnover into a single submission closed the whole period rather than inviting a look at the rest.
  • Where a disclosure is not the right route because the amounts are small or the years are still open, we say so and file ordinary amended returns instead, which is cheaper and usually faster.

Delivery Business Incorporation & Payroll Check

Six quick questions on whether a corporation pays yet, how your van and customer list would move into it, what your first hire switched on, and where your HST registration actually sits. No fee shown.

1. Is real profit staying in the business, rather than every dollar being drawn out to live on?

2. Do you know the undepreciated capital cost left in your van, as opposed to what you paid for it?

3. Is there anything in writing setting out how your van, equipment and customer list would move into a company?

4. If somebody other than you is paid to drive, is there a payroll account with remittances going in on time?

5. Was the corporation’s own HST registration position dealt with deliberately when it was set up?

6. Is your delivery business incorporated?

Free CPA Consultation for Delivery Businesses

Case Studies: Delivery Business Accounting & Tax

Ajax Delivery Operator — A Van That Crossed Without an Election

The problem: An Ajax owner running two vans had incorporated eighteen months earlier. The van, the racking and the customer list had simply started being used by the company; no election had ever been prepared, and the corporation’s opening capital cost schedule had been started at what the van originally cost. The result was depreciation claimed twice and an unreported disposition in his personal years.

What we did: We reconstructed what had actually moved and when, prepared the section 85 election on Form T2057 with elected amounts supported by documents, and rebuilt the opening schedule from the undepreciated capital cost the van genuinely carried rather than its purchase price.

The result:

  • Opening capital cost schedule rebuilt from real undepreciated capital cost
  • $18,600 of remaining depreciation preserved rather than lost
  • Duplicate claim removed before CRA reached the year

Milton Delivery Company — The First Driver Nobody Registered

The problem: A Milton owner had been paying a second driver in cash for most of a year. There was no payroll account, nothing had been withheld or remitted, no WSIB coverage existed, and the February T4 deadline had passed without anything being filed. He had also drawn every dollar the business made, so the corporation he had set up was deferring nothing.

What we did: We opened the payroll account, calculated and remitted the arrears of income tax, CPP and EI on the PD7A, filed the outstanding T4 slips with the T4 Summary reconciled to them, remittances, registered him with WSIB, and showed him why the corporation was not yet earning its keep.

The result:

  • Payroll account opened and arrears remitted on the PD7A
  • Graduated late-remittance penalty exposure contained
  • $2,400 a year of corporate cost identified as premature

Orangeville Courier Business — Two Ledgers Running as One

The problem: An Orangeville operator had incorporated mid-year and kept using the same bank account, invoice book and spreadsheet afterwards. Nothing distinguished the proprietorship’s trade from the company’s, the HST registration question had never been looked at when the corporation was set up, and no coherent record existed of what had been filed by whom.

What we did: We split the year by transaction and by date, closed the proprietorship’s ledger at the transfer and left it able to stand alone for the six years ITA 230 requires, opened the corporation’s books properly from that date, and dealt with the company’s own HST registration position deliberately rather than by assumption.

The result:

  • Two clean sets of records where there had been one muddle
  • Corporate HST registration position settled, not assumed
  • Six-year record able to support each return on its own

Our Simple Process

How We Work With Delivery Businesses

Know Exact Fees within 2 Minutes NOW

Our clear, efficient process ensures every step is transparent, building trust and long-term client relationships.

Here’s a simplified process approach:
Step 1

Kickoff (Document Request)

We ask for last year’s T1 or T2, the purchase papers and loan agreement for every vehicle, the invoices for racking and handling equipment, whatever record exists of who you paid and how much, and twelve months of bank and card statements.

Step 2

First 30 Days (Cleanup & Setup)

We settle whether a corporation pays yet. If it does, we incorporate, prepare the section 85 election, build the opening balance sheet and capital cost schedule, set up the bookkeeping and deal with the company’s HST registration position.

Step 3

Monthly Close

Reconciliations, receipt capture on fuel and repairs, revenue recorded when invoiced, payroll remittances checked against what was actually sent, and a one-page statement showing what is genuinely left to leave in the company.

Step 4

Quarterly Planning Review

The salary and dividend mix for this year rather than for the year you incorporated, whether a spouse’s pay is documented under ITA 67, the timing of the next vehicle purchase, and how close payroll is to any threshold that matters.

Step 5

Year-End Close & T2 Filing

Trial balance, financial statements with vehicles at net book value and loans split by term, Schedule 8 from the carried-forward pools, the T2 with GIFI, and compiled statements where a lender needs them.

Get Your Delivery Business Taxes Done Right Today

Transparent Pricing for Delivery Businesses

Affordable Pricing for Delivery Businesses

Know Exact Fees within 2 Minutes NOW

We believe in clear, upfront pricing so you know exactly what to expect. All fees include HST.

  • Tax Preparation (Corporation) — From $400
  • Tax Return Filing (Corporation) — From $400
  • Tax Compliance Audit — FREE CRA audit support for our clients
  • Tax Strategy — FREE for our clients
  • Accounting Base Plan — From $100 per month
  • Bookkeeping Management — Free for our Accounting clients
  • Financial Reporting — Free for our Accounting clients
  • Business Formation — Flat $35
  • Incorporation Process — Flat $35
  • Entity Setup Assistance — Flat $35
  • Full-Service Payroll — From $125 per month

Payment is by Interac e-Transfer to info@gondaliyacpa.ca only. Security question: Not Applicable, as auto-deposit is enabled.

Meet Your Lead Delivery Business Accountant

Two people handle your file, and they are the same two next year. Nobody hands you to a junior once the incorporation is done.

Sharad Gondaliya CPA

Sharad Gondaliya, CPA

Principal

Bio

647-212-9559
sharad@gondaliyacpa.ca

Vandana Goel CPA

Vandana Goel, CPA

Accounting Specialist

Bio

647-250-0242
vandana@gondaliyacpa.ca

What Our Clients Say

1300+ five-star reviews from delivery, courier and small transportation business owners across Ontario and Canada.

Serving Delivery Businesses Across Ontario

We act for delivery businesses at every stage of the crossing, from one van and no employees to a small corporation with drivers on payroll. We know what an election on Form T2057 has to contain, what an opening capital cost schedule should look like, and what the first pay cheque switches on — and we will tell you when none of it applies to you yet.

Toronto (ON)

55 Queen St E Ste 1205, Toronto, ON M5C 1R6, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Mississauga (ON)

5373 Bullrush Dr, Mississauga, ON, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Brampton (ON)

4 Starhill Crescent, Brampton, ON L6R 2P9, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Scarborough (ON)

24 Clementine Square, Scarborough, ON M1G 2V7, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Vaughan (ON)

19 Cabinet Crescent, Woodbridge, ON L4L 6H9, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Oshawa (ON)

210 Durham St, Oshawa, ON L1J 5R3, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Ottawa (ON)

2090 Neepawa Ave a314, Ottawa, ON K2A 3L6, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Etobicoke (ON)

60 Stevenson Rd #1601, Etobicoke, ON M9V 2B4, Canada

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Hamilton (ON)

70 Starling Dr, Hamilton, ON L9A 0C5, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Guelph (ON)

1155 Gordon St, Guelph, ON N1L 1S8, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Windsor (ON)

4387 Guppy Ct, Windsor, ON N9G 2N8, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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North York (ON)

150 Graydon Hall Dr #912, North York, ON M3A 3B2, Canada

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Delivery Business Accounting & Tax FAQs

Should I incorporate my delivery business?
Often not yet, and anybody who answers this without asking what you withdraw is selling you something. Deferral only ever reaches the part of the profit that stays behind in the company. If the business earns $85,000 and you take all of it home because that is what the household needs, there is nothing left to defer — and you have acquired a T2, a second set of books and an annual filing cost for no tax benefit at all. What incorporating does give you regardless is limited liability and a structure that can one day be sold. Once profit genuinely stays behind, the arithmetic changes quickly. We run it on your numbers first.
What does incorporating actually save me?
On money that stays in the company, the gap between rates. An Ontario corporation pays roughly 12.2% on the first $500,000 it earns from active business; the same dollar in your own hands at the top personal rate attracts 53.53%. That difference is a deferral, not a permanent saving — when the money is eventually paid out to you, personal tax applies then. So the benefit is the use of the cash in the meantime, which is real when you are buying vans and worth nothing when you are living on every dollar. Limited liability and a saleable structure come with it either way.
At what profit does incorporating start to pay?
There is no single number, because the answer depends on the gap between what the business earns and what you withdraw, not on earnings alone. Two owners at the same revenue can land on opposite sides of it. What we do is model your actual drawings against your actual profit, add the real cost of a corporate return and a second ledger, and show you the year in which one overtakes the other. Sometimes that year is now. Frequently it is two years out, and the right advice is to wait and keep the money you would have spent on compliance.
How do I move my van into the company?
Deliberately, and on paper. The company is a separate person from you, so it has to acquire the van from you somehow, and simply letting it start using the vehicle is not a transfer anybody can later reconstruct. Done without an election, the transfer is treated as taking place at fair market value, which can tax a gain that has built up. Done with an election under section 85 on Form T2057, the van moves at an elected amount instead. Either way the company’s opening capital cost schedule starts from the undepreciated capital cost the vehicle carries, not from what you originally paid.
What is a section 85 rollover?
It is an election that changes the figure a transfer is treated as happening at. Without it, handing property to a corporation you own is a disposition at fair market value, and any accrued gain surfaces in your personal return. With a section 85 election, filed on Form T2057, you and the corporation elect an amount for each asset, and the transfer is treated as taking place at that amount rather than at what the property would fetch on the open market. It applies to the van, to handling equipment, and to the goodwill in your customer list. The election must actually be filed — it does not arise from the fact that a transfer happened.
Do I pay tax when I transfer the van?
Not necessarily, and that is the whole reason the election exists. Left alone, the transfer is treated as a sale at fair market value, so any gain accrued while you owned the vehicle is yours to report, and where a vehicle has been depreciated, ITA 13(1) can bring the excess of proceeds over undepreciated capital cost back into income as recapture. A section 85 election lets the van cross at an elected amount instead, which is how most transfers on incorporation avoid producing a bill. We work out the consequences of both routes for your specific vehicle before anything is signed.
What happens to my customer list?
It is an asset, and it usually has more value than owners expect. The goodwill you built as a sole proprietor — the customers who ring you rather than somebody else, the standing arrangements, the reputation in a particular area — travels with the business when the business moves into a company, and it forms part of what the section 85 election covers. Treating it as worth nothing because no invoice was ever issued for it is not a position we will support on a file. We arrive at a value we can explain, document how we got there, and keep that reasoning where it can be produced.
What happens to my HST number?
It does not travel with the business. Your corporation is a new and separate person in the GST/HST system, so its registration has to be dealt with as part of setting it up rather than assumed to follow you across. Which way that is handled depends on the facts, and it is something to determine rather than guess at. The underlying rules do not change: delivering goods in Ontario is a taxable supply at 13%, and you must be registered once $30,000 of taxable revenue has accumulated across four consecutive calendar quarters. What does change is who is claiming the input tax credits, which is why the transfer date matters to the returns.
What do I do on my first hire?
Several things switch on at once. A payroll account is opened, and from the first cheque income tax, CPP and EI are withheld and remitted to CRA on a PD7A — late remittance carries a graduated penalty that reaches 10%, so the schedule is not optional. By the last day of February, T4 slips and a T4 Summary go in, and their totals must line up with the remittances you genuinely made. WSIB coverage applies from that first hire rather than from some later size. Ontario Employer Health Tax only engages once payroll passes $1,000,000, so it will not affect one driver.
Is my first driver an employee or a contractor?
That is decided on the facts of the actual working arrangement, not on what the paperwork calls it and not on what either of you would prefer, so it has to be determined rather than chosen. It matters a great deal here, because an employee brings the whole payroll apparatus with them and somebody genuinely in business on their own account does not. It is worth settling in writing before the first payment rather than afterwards. Our Courier Companies page, linked in the related industries below, works that determination through properly, and we would rather send you there than compress it into a paragraph.
Should I take salary or dividends?
It is an annual decision, not a permanent one, and the right answer moves with your circumstances. Salary is a deduction to the company and employment income to you, it builds RRSP room, and it counts toward your CPP entitlement. Dividends do neither of those things, and they are paid from money the corporation has already been taxed on. Which combination suits you depends on how much you need to live on, whether you want the RRSP room, how you feel about paying into CPP, and what you are trying to do with borrowing. We set the mix each year on that year’s facts.
Can my spouse be on payroll?
Yes, if they genuinely work in the business. The test that matters is reasonableness: ITA 67 measures the payment against what you would have had to pay an arm’s length person to do the same job, with the same hours and the same responsibility. A spouse who handles the invoicing, takes the customer calls and does the scheduling is doing real work and can be paid for it. A payment made because it was tax-efficient, with no corresponding role, is the thing the rule exists to catch. We document the duties and the hours as they happen, which is the only time that record is easy to make.
What if I never filed?
You are in a more recoverable position than you probably think, and it gets worse while you wait. Where returns or HST periods are simply outstanding, we file them in sequence, because each year’s closing balances open the next. Where income, HST or slips were never reported at all, a Voluntary Disclosures Program submission on Form RC199 made before CRA raises the matter is the route to penalty relief, and it must be complete to be worth making. Where a penalty grew out of something you had no hand in, Form RC4288 is the route to taxpayer relief. We will tell you which of these your facts actually support.

Related Industries We Serve

Courier Companies

  • Driver payroll, slips and remittances
  • Parcel revenue, HST and T2 filing
  • Records a carrier is asked to produce

Last-Mile Delivery Businesses

  • Contract revenue and deduction recovery
  • Vehicle pools and equipment CCA
  • Corporate filing and bookkeeping

Food Delivery Drivers

  • The driver’s own personal return
  • Vehicle and equipment claims
  • HST registration decisions

Incorporated Businesses

  • T2 corporate returns and GIFI
  • Yearly salary and dividend mix
  • Compiled statements for lenders

Delivery Business Accounting & Tax Done Right.

The break-even on incorporating worked out honestly before anything is sold to you, the section 85 election on Form T2057 that carries your van, equipment and customer list into the company, an opening capital cost schedule built from real undepreciated capital cost, payroll switched on properly from your first driver with WSIB and PD7A remittances, HST at 13% with the corporation’s own registration settled rather than assumed, and the salary-and-dividend decision taken fresh each year. AFFORDABLE flat fees, no hourly billing. Licensed CPA Ontario. 1300+ five-star reviews. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.



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