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Gondaliya CPA

Corporate Tax Filing Experts

Tax Accountant for Art Galleries in Ontario and Across Canada

Most of what hangs on your walls is somebody else’s property, and most of what a buyer hands you on a good afternoon is somebody else’s money. We keep consigned work off your balance sheet where it belongs, record the artist’s share as a payable the moment a sale is made, and report your commission as the revenue you actually earned. Whether tax applies to the whole price or only to that commission turns on whether the gallery sells as principal or acts for the artist — a question your consignment agreement settles, which we read, apply the same way on every invoice and document. Work bought outright is a separate population: real inventory, carried at the lower of cost and net realizable value. Track lighting, hanging systems and racking sit in Class 8 at 20%; the point-of-sale terminals and computers belong in Class 50 at 55%. Contemporary room, secondary-market dealership or print gallery, we handle the register, the payable and the fairs — with AFFORDABLE flat fees.

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AFFORDABLE Art Gallery Tax Accountant

Walk a gallery floor and almost nothing you can see is an asset of the business. The paintings belong to the people who made them until a buyer takes one down, and the instant that happens the terminal records a figure that was never going to stay. Out of it comes the artist’s share, owed from the second the sale closes and waiting only on the paperwork. What remains behind is the commission, and the commission is the only part the gallery earned. Owners who report the gross instead describe a business three or four times the size of the one they run, then judge the year against a number that has almost no relationship to what the year paid them. Sitting underneath that is a second question with a tax answer attached: on a consigned sale, is the gallery selling the work itself or acting for the person who owns it? At Gondaliya CPA, our work on a gallery file is the consignment register, the artist proceeds payable and the treatment your own agreement points to, delivered on an AFFORDABLE flat fee that holds the file straight with CRA and keeps tax you never owed out of the remittance.

As an art gallery accountant our clients are contemporary dealers, secondary-market galleries, print and photography rooms and fair-led operations across Ontario, looked after on a year-round footing rather than in one anxious month every spring. You get told what your commission actually came to, what is still owed to the people you represent, and which fairs paid for themselves.

Leave the ledger with us and keep your attention on the walls and the people who fill them.

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Accounting That Understands How an Art Gallery Actually Works

A gallery carries pressures no ordinary shop meets. Most of the stock on the floor is not yours, a large share of every sale is spoken for before the card has cleared, the tax question on a consigned sale is decided by a contract rather than a preference, and one week at a fair can settle the whole year. Gondaliya CPA begins from that reality and gives gallery owners across Ontario answers built for dealing rather than borrowed from retail.

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Custody Is Not Ownership

Consigned work sits in your care and on your insurance schedule, but it belongs to the artist until a buyer takes it down. It is not stock, and it never reaches your balance sheet.

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The Artist’s Share Is a Debt

The moment a consigned piece sells, most of the money you took became a payable. Recorded as revenue instead, a modest gallery reads on paper like a far larger one.

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Agent or Principal Is Written Down

Whether tax applies to the full price or to your commission is settled by the consignment agreement, not by habit. It must be read, applied the same way and documented.

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Bought Work Is a Separate Population

Pieces purchased outright are genuine inventory at the lower of cost and net realizable value, and they are never commingled with anything the gallery merely holds.

Stay Compliant and Minimize Your Art Gallery Tax

For a gallery, meeting CRA’s deadlines and paying the smallest legal tax bill are the same exercise. Filings go in on time and every premises, handling and fair dollar the T2 permits is claimed, so nothing is overlooked and nothing reads as an invitation to reassess.

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The Register Behind the Wall

No licensing body stands between a gallery and its buyers, but CRA expects a record, and the consignment register is the spine of it: what is held, whose it is, when it arrived, what it sold for, what share was owed and the date that share was settled. ITA section 230 requires books and records be kept for six years, and for a gallery that reaches past the sales ledger to the agreement behind each artist, the delivery notes, the insurance schedule covering work you do not own, and the artist proceeds account reconciled piece by piece. Fair costs — booth, freight, crating, travel and staffing — belong to the same discipline, tied to the sales that fair produced.

✅

CRA Obligations for Art Galleries

Compliance for a gallery is a year-round list, not one annual return. We manage GST34 returns at 13% in Ontario with the agent-or-principal treatment taken from your own consignment agreement and applied the same way every time, deposits handled under ETA subsection 168(9), lighting and hanging systems in Class 8 at 20% alongside point of sale and computers in Class 50 at 55%, recapture settled under ITA 13(1) whenever a fixture is disposed of, T4A reporting decided on the nature of each payment and the relationship behind it, WSIB in place from the first hire, and every source deduction tied back to the PD7A. That is the ground a reviewer covers first on any gallery file.

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Year-End Deliverables for Art Galleries

At year-end a gallery corporation needs a trial balance and financial statements that report commission as revenue rather than gross proceeds, state the artist proceeds payable as the liability it is, carry only owned work as inventory at the lower of cost and net realizable value with nothing consigned mixed into it, and show the fit-out and fixtures separately, together with a T2 whose GIFI reconciles to the HST returns already filed. A landlord or a lender reading the file has to be able to see that the balance in the bank is not all yours. Our team prepares every deliverable on time.

Accounting & Tax Experts for Art Galleries

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Why Choose Our Accounting Services for Art Galleries?

1
🎯

Tax Planning — Commission Margin & Capital Timing

We know the trade: commission as revenue, the artist share as a payable, Class 8 at 20% on fixtures and Class 50 at 55% on point of sale, with the $500,000 Small Business Deduction guarded year by year.

2
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Consulting — Fairs, Artists and the Register

Our bookkeeping reconciles the artist proceeds account per work and per artist, costs each fair against the sales that fair produced, and keeps owned stock wholly apart from consigned work.

3
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CRA Representation — Consignment & HST Review

When CRA tests how tax was charged on a consigned sale, or asks why deposits outrun reported revenue, we prepare the answer and, where the penalties stem from an earlier mistake, seek relief on Form RC4288.

4
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Bookkeeping — Cash Flow & Succession

We build the cash flow that keeps the artist payable funded between sale and settlement, produce the statements a landlord or lender will accept, and model the exit years ahead.

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Art Gallery Tax and Accounting Services in Ontario

📄

Corporate Tax Filing (T2) for Art Galleries

Professional T2 preparation with consigned work kept off the balance sheet, commission reported as revenue, owned stock properly valued and CRA compliance on every line.

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Bookkeeping & Accounting for Art Galleries

A consignment register beside the ledger, the artist proceeds account reconciled per work and per artist, and financial statements built from records that reconcile.

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Payroll Services for Art Galleries

Gallery staff payroll with WSIB coverage from the first hire, PD7A remittances, T4 and T4A reporting tested on the facts and filed on time.

🧾

GST/HST Filing for Art Galleries

AFFORDABLE HST filing at 13% with the agent-or-principal treatment taken from your own agreement, deposits handled correctly, and every input tax credit recovered.

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Tax Planning for Art Galleries

Smart planning on fixture and fit-out timing across Class 8 and Class 50, the Small Business Deduction, and the ownership structure years before you step back.

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Corporate Catch-Up Filing for Art Galleries

Overdue T2 and HST years brought up to date, with the consignment register and the artist payable rebuilt behind them, returning you to CRA compliance on accurate numbers.

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CRA Audit Resolution for Art Galleries

Expert support when CRA questions gross deposits, the tax charged on a consigned sale or the value of owned stock, handled from the first letter.

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CPA Financial Statements (Notice to Reader) for Art Galleries

CPA-compiled financial statements a landlord or lender will accept, showing commission as revenue and the artist proceeds payable stated as a liability.

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Incorporation Services for Art Galleries

Incorporation end to end — NUANS search, articles, share classes — plus the section 85 rollover that moves your fit-out, fixtures, owned stock and goodwill in at elected amounts.

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Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services for Art Galleries

Months or years of sales, artist settlements, framing, freight and fair invoices reconstructed and reconciled, so the payable and the register are finally accurate.

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US Corporation & LLC Tax Filing for Art Galleries

Cross-border filing where the gallery sells into the United States or where an owner or shareholder is American or non-resident, covering withholding and T1135.

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Voluntary Disclosure Program for Art Galleries

Come forward on unreported sales, tax charged on the wrong base or T4A reporting never done, cancelling penalties through a Voluntary Disclosures Program application.

Accounting & Tax Services Tailored for Art Galleries

Real, practitioner-level CPA expertise for contemporary dealers, secondary-market galleries, print and photography rooms and fair-led operations across Ontario — built for a business that holds other people’s property and owes out most of what it takes.

  • Your T2 carries GIFI across Schedule 100 and Schedule 125 with commission on consigned sales, proceeds on work the gallery owned outright, framing and installation charges and any rental income each on their own line, so CRA’s matching reads the file properly.
  • We keep consigned work off the balance sheet altogether, because a piece held for an artist is not stock the gallery owns, and we state the artist proceeds payable as the liability it became on the day the sale closed.
  • We carry work the gallery bought outright as inventory at the lower of cost and net realizable value, tested at year-end, so a $40,000 holding that has not moved in three seasons is stated at what it is worth rather than what it cost.
  • We claim capital cost allowance on Schedule 8 with track lighting, hanging systems, storage racking, plinths and display cases in Class 8 at 20%, point of sale terminals and computers in Class 50 at 55%, and the shopfront fit-out as a leasehold in Class 13.
  • When a lighting system or a set of fixtures goes, recapture is settled under ITA 13(1) wherever the proceeds run past undepreciated capital cost, and a terminal loss is taken where the class empties below its remaining balance.
  • We run a consignment register beside the ledger so every piece on the floor traces back to the artist who owns it, the date it arrived, the share agreed in writing and the invoice that eventually released it.
  • We reconcile the artist proceeds account per work and per artist every month, so what you owe is a list of named pieces and named people rather than one lump figure nobody is able to take apart.
  • We record commission as your revenue and the artist’s share as a payable on the same entry, because a gallery reporting $900,000 of gross sales as turnover is describing a business roughly four times the size of its own.
  • We hold owned stock and consigned work in separate populations from the first entry, since one is a balance-sheet asset measured at the lower of cost and net realizable value and the other belongs nowhere near it.
  • Rent, framing, freight, crating and fair invoices are captured through Dext and reconciled every month, which holds the six-year record ITA section 230 calls for and stops input tax credits leaking away unclaimed.
  • We test whether gallery staff are employees or contractors on the facts of each engagement, weighing control, tools, risk and the chance of profit rather than taking the wording on an invoice as the answer.
  • WSIB coverage is registered before the first hire, because hanging work at height, shifting crates and running a preparation room are precisely the jobs an unregistered employer cannot afford an injury on.
  • Wagepoint handles the deductions — income tax, CPP and EI — and we get the PD7A to CRA by the 15th of the month that follows, because a late remittance draws a graduated charge that tops out at 10%.
  • The T4 slips and T4 Summary must be in by the last day of February; we reconcile both against the PD7A remittances actually made, so a $3,000 discrepancy shows up in our March review rather than in a CRA letter two years later.
  • We track Ontario payroll against the $1,000,000 Employer Health Tax exemption, a threshold a gallery with a second room and a full handling team can pass before anyone notices it was close.
  • Art sales are taxable supplies at 13% in Ontario, and we register you once taxable revenue passes $30,000 across four consecutive calendar quarters rather than letting a reassessment set that date for you.
  • Whether tax applies to the whole sale price or only to your commission depends on whether the gallery sells as principal or acts as agent for the artist. Your consignment agreement settles that, so we read it, apply the answer consistently and document the basis.
  • We claim the input tax credits on rent, utilities, framing, crating, freight, fair costs, professional fees and capital purchases, which for a gallery fitting out a second room is a substantial recovery in the period it lands.
  • A deposit is not consideration until it is applied, so under ETA subsection 168(9) the tax on money left to hold a piece is collected when it goes against the invoice, not on the day the buyer handed it over.
  • We tie every HST return back to the sales ledger and the artist proceeds account before filing, so a $12,000 remittance rests on records that answer a reviewer’s first question without anybody scrambling.
  • The owners draw a T4 salary large enough to keep RRSP room accumulating, with the remainder paid as dividends; that split holds the combined bill near Ontario’s 12.2% small-business figure rather than a 53.53% personal top rate.
  • The $500,000 Small Business Deduction is protected under ITA section 125 by keeping active income beneath it, and the associated-corporation tests are watched where the same owner also stands behind the building or a second trading room.
  • Fit-out and fixture spending is timed against your fiscal year-end, setting the 55% rate on Class 50 point of sale and computers beside the 20% rate on Class 8 lighting and display, so each deduction lands where it is worth most.
  • We plan the owned-stock position before year-end, because buying work that ties up $75,000 of cash on a wall nobody has asked about is an expensive way to soften a profitable year.
  • Two years of runway is the minimum for the $1.25M Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption under ITA 110.6, so we start early and purify the balance sheet of anything that would fail the qualifying asset test.
  • Across the unfiled years we rebuild commission revenue, sales of owned work and artist settlements out of bank deposits, terminal reports and the invoices you issued, restoring the six-year record ITA section 230 demands.
  • Filing late costs 5% of the balance owing plus a further 1% for every month it stays outstanding, capped at twelve, so the oldest year goes in first to stop that stacking and cut the arrears interest.
  • We strip gross proceeds back out of revenue across the missing years, because a gallery filed on turnover overstated its income by everything it owed its artists and may well have paid tax on money it never kept.
  • Capital cost pools are rebuilt through the backlog, with point of sale and computer equipment lifted out of Class 8 and into Class 50, which restores deduction understated in every year the misclassification survived.
  • We file a Voluntary Disclosures Program application on Form RC199 ahead of any CRA contact, which on a $60,000 arrears position cancels the penalties outright and secures roughly 50% interest relief on the older years.
  • When CRA asks why deposits into the bank run well ahead of reported revenue, we produce the artist proceeds reconciliation showing which of that money was never the gallery’s, and that is where nearly every gallery review starts.
  • When a reviewer tests how tax was charged on consigned sales, we hand over the agreement, the invoices and evidence of one consistent treatment across the period, instead of leaving an auditor to choose an answer.
  • When CRA questions what owned stock is worth, we show the lower of cost and net realizable value working piece by piece, with the support behind any write-down rather than an unexplained adjustment at the year-end.
  • Once a full audit is open we carry the file ourselves and answer each revenue, payable and payroll query within the time allowed, which keeps a one-year look from widening into the three earlier years CRA may reopen.
  • We file the Notice of Objection inside the 90 days a reassessment allows and apply for taxpayer relief on Form RC4288, which on an $18,000 penalty and interest charge caused by an earlier adviser is often cancelled once the history is set out.
  • For a landlord weighing a lease renewal or a lender sizing an operating line against a slow winter, we produce CSRS 4200 compilation engagement financial statements covering two fiscal years.
  • Your compiled statement of financial position shows the artist proceeds payable as a liability and carries only owned work as inventory, so nobody mistakes a floor full of consigned pieces for an asset of the company.
  • We present revenue as commission earned with gross sale proceeds disclosed separately, because a reader looking at $1,400,000 passing through the account and $330,000 retained needs both figures to understand one business.
  • We state the fit-out, lighting and display fixtures at net book value by class, separating the Class 50 equipment that depreciates quickly from the Class 8 assets that hold value across a long lease.
  • Your compiled statements land within 30 days of us having the records and the year’s T2 numbers, because a lease negotiation or a credit review before the fair season will not wait on a slow accountant.
  • We incorporate your gallery in Ontario, which gives you limited liability on premises full of work you do not own and roughly the 12.2% Ontario small-business rate against a personal rate reaching 53.53%.
  • We complete the section 85 rollover on Form T2057, moving the fit-out, fixtures, owned stock and goodwill into the corporation at elected amounts and deferring the gain an outright sale of those assets would trigger.
  • The opening Class 8, Class 50 and Class 13 schedules come straight off the rollover, so the new company starts life with an asset base that is right rather than one pieced together from memory four years on.
  • Within the first month the corporation’s CRA Business Number, HST and payroll accounts are opened, and we confirm that the lease, the cover on work you hold for others and every artist agreement have moved across.
  • We set the chart of accounts with the consignment register, the artist proceeds payable and per-fair cost centres built in from the first sale, so the records accumulate correctly rather than needing a $6,000 cleanup.
  • We rebuild months or years of neglected books from bank deposits, card settlements, sales invoices and artist correspondence, so a gallery that traded two seasons without bookkeeping finally holds a ledger that reconciles.
  • We rebuild the artist proceeds account from nothing, piece by piece, which regularly turns up settlements paid twice over and others still owing eighteen months later that nobody had thought to chase.
  • We separate work the gallery bought from work it only held across the backlog, because a catch-up filing that treated consigned pieces as stock reports assets that were never there and a margin nobody is able to verify.
  • We recover the input tax credits buried in unentered rent, framing, crating, freight and fair invoices, which for a gallery doing two fairs a year can reach $14,000 across a couple of seasons.
  • We reconstruct fair costing across the caught-up period so each fair shows what it produced against what it cost, instead of one blended figure telling the owner nothing about which ones to book again.
  • Where the gallery sells to a buyer in the United States or ships a piece over the border, we look at what was actually supplied and where before treating anything as zero-rated, rather than letting a foreign address decide it.
  • A shareholder resident abroad brings Part XIII withholding on dividends leaving the corporation, at 25% or whatever a treaty reduces it to, and we take care of the remittance and the NR4 slips behind it.
  • Foreign property held by the owners above the $100,000 cost threshold triggers Form T1135, and we file it, because CRA attaches that penalty to the reporting failure itself whether or not tax was ever owing.
  • Where an American citizen sits on the share register, we coordinate both sets of returns, since United States reporting reaches into a Canadian corporation in ways most gallery families only discover when a bank asks.
  • We reconcile the two returns so foreign tax credits actually land, which keeps the same $80,000 of cross-border income from being taxed twice instead of written off as the price of selling abroad.
  • We disclose art sales that never reached a return at all, including private sales settled by transfer and work moved at a fair, because a $90,000 gap between deposits and reported revenue is the first thing a reviewer measures.
  • We correct tax charged on the wrong base across several years, where HST was applied to the commission on some consigned sales and to the full price on others with nothing on file to explain either choice.
  • The RC199 submission goes in with a complete reconstruction drawn from bank records, the sales ledger and the consignment register, so a gallery that simply outgrew its bookkeeping never has to accept an arbitrary assessment.
  • We bring forward T4A reporting never done on payments where it was in fact required, once the nature of each payment and the relationship behind it have been tested on the facts rather than simply assumed.
  • Before anything is submitted we establish that the disclosure meets all three tests — made voluntarily, made in full, and covering a year that is at least twelve months past due — which is what converts exposure into a managed correction.

Art Gallery Consignment & Tax Check

Six quick questions on your consignment register, the artist proceeds payable, how tax is charged on a consigned sale, your owned stock, your fair costing and whether it is time to incorporate. No fee shown.

1. Do you keep a consignment register showing whose work is on the floor?

2. Is the artist’s share recorded as a payable rather than as your revenue?

3. Has your consignment agreement been read to settle the agent-or-principal question?

4. Is work you bought outright carried separately from work held on consignment?

5. Is each art fair costed against the sales that fair actually produced?

6. Is your art gallery incorporated?

Free CPA Consultation for Art Galleries

Case Studies: Art Gallery Accounting & Tax

Burlington Contemporary Gallery — Turnover That Was Never Theirs

The problem: A Burlington gallery representing eighteen artists had reported every sale at its full price as revenue for four years, with the settlements it paid out sitting underneath in an expense account. On paper the business turned over just under $1,100,000 and looked like a company that should long ago have outgrown the small business limit. What it actually earned was commission; the rest of the money crossing the account had always belonged to somebody else. The owner had been sizing the lease and the staffing against a figure that described a business nobody ran.

What we did: We rebuilt four years of ledgers so commission became the revenue line and the artist’s share became a payable dated to each sale, reconciled the artist proceeds account piece by piece and artist by artist, and restated the statements the landlord had been reading.

The result:

  • Reported turnover restated to $268,000 of commission
  • Artist proceeds payable reconciled per work and per artist
  • Small business limit no longer threatened by phantom revenue

Picton Gallery — Two Populations in One Pile

The problem: A Picton gallery had started buying work outright alongside the pieces it held for artists, and everything went onto one stock list. Nothing on that list recorded which pieces the gallery owned, so the year-end inventory figure swept in work belonging to nine different artists, the balance sheet carried an asset that was not there, and the payable was understated by exactly the same logic. When a piece sold, no one could tell from the record whether the money represented commission or the recovery of a purchase.

What we did: We split the two populations at source, built a consignment register covering every piece on the floor, valued owned work alone at the lower of cost and net realizable value, and set an intake rule so ownership is settled the day a work arrives.

The result:

  • Consigned work removed from the balance sheet entirely
  • Owned stock valued at the lower of cost and net realizable value
  • Ownership settled at intake rather than at year-end

Elora Gallery — Four Fairs and One Overhead Account

The problem: An Elora gallery did four art fairs a year and could not say which of them worked. Booth fees, freight, crating, insurance on work in transit, hotels and the wages of the two staff who travelled all landed in general overhead, while the sales each fair produced went into the same revenue line as the floor at home. The owner believed the largest and most distant fair was carrying the whole program, and had already committed the gallery to it for two more seasons without once testing that assumption.

What we did: We built each fair as its own cost centre, matched every cost to the fair that caused it and every sale to the fair that produced it, and gave the owner a contribution report per fair ahead of the next booking round.

The result:

  • One fair shown to lose $22,000 a year and dropped
  • $31,000 of fair costs moved out of general overhead
  • Per-fair contribution reported before each booking round

Our Simple Process

How We Work With Art Galleries

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)

Collect prior T2 returns, the consignment agreements and register, artist settlement records, sales and invoice history, purchase records for work the gallery owns, fair invoices, lease and fit-out costs, payroll records, and bank statements.

Step 2

First 30 Days (Cleanup & Setup)

Set up QuickBooks Online or Xero with commission revenue, the artist proceeds payable and per-fair cost centres, split owned stock from consigned work, and rebuild the Class 8, Class 50 and Class 13 schedules.

Step 3

Monthly Close

Artist proceeds reconciled per work and per artist, owned stock reviewed, fair costing updated, GST34 filed on the treatment your own agreement supports, and payroll, PD7A and settlement reconciliation.

Step 4

Quarterly Planning Review

Salary and dividend mix, fixture and fit-out timing across Class 8 and Class 50, the owned-stock position against your year-end, and cash flow against the artist settlements falling due.

Step 5

Year-End Close & T2 Filing

Trial balance, financial statements with commission as revenue and the artist payable stated, owned work at the lower of cost and net realizable value, recapture settled, T2 with GIFI, and CRA preparation.

Get Your Art Gallery Taxes Done Right Today

Transparent Pricing for Art Galleries

Affordable Pricing for Art Galleries

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 Art Gallery Accountant

Meet the two people who will actually run your gallery file. You are not handed to a different preparer each spring; the same pair carry it from the consignment register through to the filed T2.

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

Owners of galleries, dealerships and arts businesses across Ontario and Canada have left us more than 1300 five-star reviews.

Serving Art Galleries Across Ontario

We look after commercial galleries and dealers the length of Ontario. Our team knows why consigned work never reaches the balance sheet, why the artist share is a liability from the instant of sale, where the agent-or-principal question is actually settled, and what CRA reaches for first when a gallery file is opened.

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)

2100 Camilla Rd #716, Mississauga, ON L5A 2J8

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

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

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Ottawa (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Etobicoke (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Hamilton (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Guelph (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Windsor (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

North York (ON)

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

+1 (647) 212-9559

9:00 AM – 8:30 PM (Mon – Sun)

Art Gallery Accounting & Tax FAQs

Should I incorporate my art gallery?
Incorporating gives you limited liability, which carries weight in a business whose floor is full of work belonging to other people, and a combined Ontario rate close to 12.2% on the first $500,000 of active earnings, where an unincorporated owner can face 53.53%. What decides it is whether the gallery keeps back more than the owners draw out, since only retained margin can be sheltered inside a company. There is a second reason peculiar to galleries: incorporating forces the artist proceeds payable and the commission line apart on a balance sheet a landlord or lender can actually read. Where it pays to do so, we prepare the section 85 rollover on Form T2057.
Do I charge HST on art sales?
Yes. Art sales are taxable supplies, and in Ontario the rate is 13%. Registration stops being optional once taxable revenue crosses $30,000 across any four consecutive calendar quarters, and a gallery that waits for a reassessment to pick the date usually ends up remitting tax it never charged out of its own margin. Registration also opens up the input tax credits on rent, utilities, framing, crating, freight, fair costs, professional fees and capital purchases, which for a business carrying premises and travelling to fairs is a real recovery every filing period rather than a rounding item.
Is tax charged on the full sale price or only on my commission?
That depends on whether the gallery is selling the work as principal or acting as agent for the artist, and it is not a preference you get to pick each time. The answer is in your consignment agreement: what it says about title, about who sets the price, about who carries the risk and about whose name goes on the invoice to the buyer. We read the agreement, establish which treatment it supports, apply that same treatment on every consigned sale in the period, and document the basis in the file so a reviewer sees one consistent position rather than a pattern nobody can explain.
Are consigned works my inventory, and do they belong on my balance sheet?
No, on both counts. A work held on consignment belongs to the artist until a buyer takes it, so it is not stock the gallery owns and it does not appear as inventory on the gallery balance sheet at any point. What you do owe is stewardship: it is on your premises, on your insurance schedule and on your register. The population that does go on the balance sheet is work the gallery bought outright, including pieces acquired for the secondary market. The two are tracked separately from the day each piece arrives and are never allowed to mix.
Is the artist’s share my revenue?
No. The moment a consigned piece sells, the artist’s share of what the buyer paid is a liability of the gallery, owed and waiting on nothing but the settlement run. Your revenue is the commission. A gallery that books the gross as turnover describes a business three or four times the size of the one it operates, which distorts every ratio the owner uses, can push the file toward limits and thresholds it never really reached, and makes the year look like something it was not. The commission is the number that tells you whether the year worked.
When does a consignment sale become income?
When the sale is made, not when the artist is paid and not when the work was first delivered to you. That is the point at which the buyer is committed, the commission is earned and the artist share becomes a payable, and all three entries belong in the same period. Settling with the artist weeks later is a cash movement against a liability already on the books, not a second event with its own income effect. Getting the timing right matters most across a year-end, where a sale in one period and a settlement in the next can otherwise land in the wrong year.
How do I account for money owed to artists?
In a dedicated artist proceeds account, reconciled per work and per artist rather than kept as a single running balance. For each piece sold we hold what it sold for, what share was owed, what has been paid and when, so the closing balance is a list of named works and named people you can hand to anybody who asks. A gallery that keeps only a total figure cannot answer the two questions that matter most: who is still waiting, and does the cash on hand cover it. That reconciliation is also the document that answers CRA when deposits look larger than reported revenue.
What records does CRA want on consignment?
ITA section 230 requires books and records to be kept for six years, and for a gallery that means more than the sales ledger. Keep the consignment agreement behind each artist, the register showing what is held and whose it is, the delivery and return notes, the invoice for every sale with the treatment applied to it, the artist proceeds reconciliation per work, and the settlement payments themselves. Keep the fair paperwork too, because booth, freight, crating, insurance, travel and staffing costs are only defensible against the sales the fair produced if somebody wrote down which fair each of them belonged to.
Do I issue a T4A to an artist?
It depends on the nature of the payment and on the relationship behind it, and it is decided on the facts rather than by a rule of thumb. A settlement that simply passes on the artist share of a sale arises from a different relationship than a fee paid to somebody engaged to carry out work for the gallery, and the reporting follows that difference. We look at each stream of payments, establish what it actually is, and file what is required rather than issuing slips indiscriminately or, more commonly, issuing none at all. Where reporting was missed in past years, it can usually be brought forward voluntarily.
How is work my gallery owns valued?
Work the gallery bought outright is inventory, carried at the lower of cost and net realizable value and tested at each year-end. Cost is what you paid plus what it took to get the piece onto the floor. Net realizable value is what it can reasonably be expected to bring less what it will cost to sell it. Where a piece has sat unsold for several seasons, those two numbers part company, and carrying it at cost overstates both the balance sheet and the profit. The support for any write-down goes in the file when it is taken, not when a reviewer asks.
How do I handle a deposit or an instalment arrangement?
A deposit is not consideration for the supply until it is applied, and ETA subsection 168(9) puts the tax point at the moment it goes against the invoice rather than the afternoon the buyer handed it over. In your accounts, money held against a piece that has not changed hands is not income; it sits as a liability until the sale is made. An instalment arrangement works the same way, with a buyer paying a work down over several months, and the balance sheet should say plainly how much is being held and against which piece.
Can I deduct art fair costs?
Yes, and more usefully, each fair should be its own cost centre. Booth fees, freight both ways, crating, insurance on work in transit, travel, accommodation and the wages of staff who went all belong against the sales that fair produced, not in general overhead where they are invisible. One fair can decide a year in either direction, and an owner looking at a single blended overhead figure has no way of telling which of the four is carrying the others. Costed properly, the contribution report per fair is usually the most useful page a gallery gets all year.
What happens if no T2 has ever been filed for the gallery?
This is recoverable, and far cheaper to sort out on your own initiative than after a letter arrives. Late filing carries 5% of the balance owing, then 1% more for each month outstanding up to twelve, with arrears interest running alongside, so the oldest year is dealt with first. We reconstruct commission revenue, sales of owned work and artist settlements from bank deposits, terminal reports and invoices, rebuild the register and the payable, and then file a Voluntary Disclosures Program application on Form RC199 where it applies. A disclosure has to be genuinely voluntary, complete, and at least one year past due, and where it is accepted the penalties are cancelled.

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Art Gallery Accounting & Tax Done Right.

T2 filing with consigned work kept off the balance sheet, the artist share stated as a payable from the day of sale, commission reported as the revenue you actually earned, the agent-or-principal treatment taken from your own consignment agreement and applied consistently, work bought outright carried at the lower of cost and net realizable value, fixtures and lighting depreciating in Class 8 at 20% while the terminals sit in Class 50 at 55%, and every art fair costed against the sales it produced. AFFORDABLE flat fees, no hourly billing. Licensed CPA Ontario. 1300+ five-star reviews. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.



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