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Gondaliya CPA

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Tax Accountant for Educational Consultants in Ontario and Across Canada

Advising families, schools and boards is a taxable supply, so your fees carry 13% Ontario HST and the credits on everything you buy to deliver that advice stay recoverable under section 169 — an advantage most education businesses do not have. Two things are rarely explained to a consultant properly. If a one-client corporation is characterised as a personal services business, the small business deduction and the general rate reduction both go, section 123.5 adds a further 5% of that income to Part I tax, and paragraph 18(1)(p) cuts allowable deductions to a short list — against 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) on active business income of a CCPC. And paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1) of Part V of Schedule VI exclude a supply made to an individual who is in Canada at any time when that individual has contact with you, and a service rendered to an individual while that individual is in Canada, so a family abroad that flies in for campus visits and meets you here can defeat the zero-rating somebody promised them. We register you, settle which export provision each engagement is tested under, obtain evidence of non-residence before anything is zero-rated, and keep the file for the six years section 230 asks for. AFFORDABLE fixed fees, quoted before we start.

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AFFORDABLE Educational Consultant Tax Accountant

An educational consultant sells judgement about other people’s institutions. Nothing is manufactured and nothing is shipped, which is exactly why this practice’s two largest tax exposures never appear on a bank statement. The first is structural. If you incorporated and the overwhelming majority of your billings run to one board, one agency or one partner school, the corporation can be characterised as a personal services business under subsection 125(7). That label is not a rate adjustment. It removes the small business deduction and the general rate reduction, section 123.5 adds a further 5% of that income to the corporation’s Part I tax, and paragraph 18(1)(p) reduces what may be deducted to a short list. The test itself, and how a dominant-client file is argued, is set out on our engineering consultants page; this page is about what follows once the label sticks. The second exposure catches advisers with international families. A fee billed to a non-resident parent looks like a zero-rated export and often is, but the exclusions in paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1) of Part V of Schedule VI turn on where the individual was standing, not on where the school is.

As an accountant for educational consultants we act for university and private-school admissions advisers, independent school placement consultants, special education advocacy practices, curriculum and school improvement consultants, international student recruitment agents and test preparation advisers across Ontario, on a year-round footing instead of a single appointment each spring. What you get from us is a clear answer on which engagements carry 13%, which are genuinely zero-rated and what has to be on the file before you bill them, and where your corporation sits relative to that line.

You advise families on the biggest decision of a young person’s life; the registrations, the records and the returns behind that work are ours to carry.

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Accounting That Understands How an Educational Consulting Practice Actually Works

An advisory practice holds no inventory, no plant and almost no working capital, so the numbers that decide its tax position are all questions of characterisation: who the client legally is, where that client was standing when they dealt with you, how many clients there really are, and whether the corporation is carrying on an active business at all. Those four questions are what our bookkeeping and our tax work get organised around, for educational consultants the length of Ontario.

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Taxable, and That Is the Advantage

Consulting fees are a taxable supply carrying 13% in Ontario. Because the supply is taxable rather than exempt, the input tax credits on your software, devices, travel and rent are recoverable under section 169.

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One Client Changes the Arithmetic

A corporation billing substantially one payer can be characterised as a personal services business. What follows is a 28% federal rate, a further 5% under section 123.5, and deductions cut to a short list.

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Where the Family Stood Decides It

Paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1) exclude a supply made to an individual in Canada when contact occurs, and a service rendered to an individual while in Canada. A campus-visit meeting here can undo the zero-rating.

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Evidence First, Not Afterwards

A supplier must verify and obtain evidence of non-residence before zero-rating a fee. Gathering it after CRA asks is not the same exercise, and on a reviewed file it is usually the part that is missing.

Stay Compliant and Minimize Your Educational Consulting Tax

Two things have to happen at once in an advisory practice: the returns go in on schedule, and the tax they report is the lowest figure the legislation actually permits. We keep the T2, the HST filings and any payroll remittances on their dates while putting every defensible software, device, travel and subcontractor dollar into the return, so nothing is surrendered and nothing looks odd enough to pull.

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The Record Behind a Zero-Rated Invoice

Six years is the minimum the Income Tax Act fixes for books and records, in section 230, and on an advisory file the difficulty is not the length of that period but its contents. A fee billed at 0% needs the evidence of non-residence that was obtained before the invoice went out, the engagement letter, and a note of where the client was when each exchange happened, because paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1) of Part V of Schedule VI turn on exactly that. The rule runs in both directions: once the records will not carry what the return claimed, subsection 152(7) lets CRA assess on a basis of its own choosing, and dislodging that figure becomes the taxpayer’s job. That is the argument for capturing residency and place of contact as the engagement opens rather than reconstructing both from memory two years later.

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CRA Obligations for Educational Consultants

One return a year is a small part of what an advisory corporation owes CRA. The work we carry includes the HST filings, with 13% on domestic consulting fees and input tax credits taken back under section 169 against software, devices, travel and rent; the export determination settled engagement by engagement under section 23 of Part V of Schedule VI for an advisory, professional or consulting service supplied to a non-resident person, or under section 7 and its exclusions where the client is an individual; evidence of non-residence obtained before any fee is zero-rated; the active business question tested before the small business deduction is claimed; capital cost allowance on Class 50 at 55% and Class 12 at 100%; Form T4A for fees paid to a subcontracted adviser; and the $3,000 net tax owing instalment threshold watched before it is crossed.

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Year-End Deliverables for Educational Consultants

What comes out of a year end here is a trial balance plus statements that describe the practice honestly. Domestic taxable fees and zero-rated fees appear as two revenue streams, not one consulting line. Retainers taken for advice still to be delivered sit in deferred revenue rather than in fees earned. Partner-school commissions get their own line with the agent-or-principal question already resolved. Equipment and software are carried at net book value across Class 50 and Class 12. And the largest single client is stated as a percentage of billings, which is where any reader should start, because on an advisory balance sheet that percentage is what decides the rate. The T2 and its GIFI then agree to the HST returns that went in during the year. Each item lands on a date you can plan around.

Accounting & Tax Experts for Educational Consultants

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Why Choose Our Accounting Services for Educational Consultants?

1
🎯

Tax Planning — The Rate You Actually Get

We test the active business question before the small business deduction is claimed, so 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) on the first $500,000 is a position we can defend rather than an assumption nobody checked.

2
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Consulting — Which Fees Carry Tax

Our bookkeeping separates domestic fees at 13% from fees properly zero-rated to a non-resident, with the residency evidence attached to the engagement, so the split survives a review.

3
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CRA Representation — Characterisation

When CRA asks why a fee was zero-rated or screens a single-payer corporation, we assemble the engagement letters, the billing record and the residency evidence and answer the letter ourselves.

4
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Bookkeeping — The Admissions Calendar

We forecast an admissions year that bills heavily in two seasons and thinly between them, hold unearned retainers out of revenue, and set the structure years before you need to change it.

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Educational Consulting Tax and Accounting Services in Ontario

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Corporate Tax Filing (T2) for Educational Consultants

T2 preparation with the active business question tested first, advisory fees and school commissions split in the GIFI, and section 123.5 reported where a characterisation applies.

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Bookkeeping & Accounting for Educational Consultants

Engagement-level books that record the fee, the client’s residency and where each exchange took place, with your largest client shown as a share of billings every month.

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Payroll Services for Educational Consultants

Associate and administrative payroll with income tax, CPP and EI withheld and remitted, Form T4A for subcontracted advisers, and headcount tracked because it is also a tax fact.

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GST/HST Filing for Educational Consultants

AFFORDABLE HST filing with 13% on domestic advisory fees, the export provision settled engagement by engagement, and input tax credits recovered under section 169.

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Tax Planning for Educational Consultants

Planning on client concentration, who the contracting party is, how the owners are paid, equipment and software timing across Class 50 and Class 12, and the eventual exit.

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Corporate Catch-Up Filing for Educational Consultants

Overdue T2 and HST years filed, each year tested for the active business question, and your corporation returned to good standing.

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CRA Audit Resolution for Educational Consultants

Support on zero-rating evidence, personal services business screens and deduction reasonableness, carried from the first letter through to resolution.

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CPA Financial Statements (Notice to Reader) for Educational Consultants

CPA-compiled statements a lender or a landlord accepts, with taxable and zero-rated revenue and unearned retainers presented for what they are.

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Incorporation Services for Educational Consultants

The company set up end to end, with the dominant-client question answered before incorporating rather than discovered on the first reassessment.

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Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services for Educational Consultants

Years of retainers, commissions, software subscriptions and travel reconstructed and reconciled until the revenue split and the asset schedule are finally right.

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US Corporation & LLC Tax Filing for Educational Consultants

Cross-border filing where an owner or shareholder is American or non-resident, with the questions that belong to immigration or foreign licensing named as such.

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Voluntary Disclosure Program for Educational Consultants

Come forward on HST never charged on a domestic fee, a fee zero-rated without evidence, or a deduction claimed that paragraph 18(1)(p) never allowed.

Accounting & Tax Services Tailored for Educational Consultants

Practitioner-level CPA work for admissions and placement advisers, special education advocacy practices, curriculum and school improvement consultants, international student recruitment agents and test preparation advisers across Ontario — built for a business whose tax outcome is decided by who the client is and where that client was standing.

  • The GIFI schedules we prepare give advisory fees, placement retainers, partner-school commissions and workshop income a line apiece, so CRA does not receive your year as a single consulting figure with no shape to it.
  • We test whether the corporation is carrying on an active business before the small business deduction is claimed, because a return that simply assumes active income on a single-payer file is the return that gets reopened.
  • Where the corporation is found to be carrying on such a business, the federal rate is 28%, being 38% less the 10% abatement and without the 13% general rate reduction, and the return has to be built on that footing.
  • Section 123.5 then adds a further 5% of the corporation’s taxable income from that business to its Part I tax, and it is reported on the T2 as additional tax on personal services business income.
  • Paragraph 18(1)(p) limits what such a corporation may deduct to a short list, so we rebuild the computation on that basis rather than carrying forward ordinary business deductions that are no longer open to it.
  • We open a file for every engagement and record the fee, the contracting party, the client’s residency and where each exchange took place, because those four facts decide the HST treatment long before the invoice does.
  • We report your largest single client as a share of billings every month rather than once a year, because a practice drifting towards one dominant payer needs to learn that while it can still do something about it.
  • Domestic fees taxable at 13% and fees properly zero-rated to a non-resident are kept as two streams in the ledger, each tied to the evidence that supports it, so the split is never reconstructed under review.
  • Retainers collected for advice not yet delivered sit in deferred revenue rather than in fees earned, so income appears in the period the work was actually done and an admissions-cycle practice stops flattering its quiet months.
  • Subscription receipts, device purchases, travel and adviser invoices come in through Dext and Hubdoc, and the monthly reconciliation means every claimed amount is supported and every recoverable credit is actually recovered.
  • Whether an associate adviser, a researcher or an administrator is your employee or an independent contractor is settled on the facts of that engagement, and Form RC4110 sets out the questions we work through with you.
  • We run the payroll, withhold income tax, CPP and EI and remit against the PD7A on whatever schedule CRA has assigned your account, then tie the year-end slips back to those remittances so a mismatch surfaces early.
  • Fees paid to a subcontracted adviser are reported on Form T4A, and we keep the agreements and the invoices with them so a later question about status has the contemporaneous record to answer it.
  • Employing more than five full-time employees throughout the year is one of the two exceptions written into the subsection 125(7) definition, so headcount on your payroll is a tax fact and we track it as one.
  • The incorporated employee’s salary, wages and related benefits are among the few amounts paragraph 18(1)(p) still allows, so where a characterisation is a live risk the remuneration plan matters more than usual.
  • Educational consulting is a taxable supply and carries 13% in Ontario, and because it is taxable rather than exempt the input tax credits on your software, devices, travel and rent stay recoverable under section 169.
  • Registration becomes compulsory when taxable revenue across four consecutive calendar quarters exceeds $30,000, and we report that rolling figure monthly, because an admissions year can carry a practice past it in a single quarter.
  • Section 23 of Part V of Schedule VI zero-rates an advisory, professional or consulting service supplied to a non-resident person, excluding a service rendered to an individual in connection with litigation in Canada once that litigation has commenced.
  • Section 7 is the general export provision, and paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1) exclude a supply made to an individual who is in Canada at any time when that individual has contact with you, and a service rendered while in Canada.
  • We verify and obtain evidence of non-residence before anything is zero-rated, and we determine the place of supply engagement by engagement rather than letting the billing software default every invoice to one rate.
  • Where the corporation is a CCPC and the income is genuinely active, its first $500,000 attracts 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) in Ontario; the figure sat near 12.2% until that day, so a December year end straddles both.
  • That rate is a conclusion rather than a starting point, so the planning that protects it looks at client concentration, who the contracting party on each engagement actually is, and whether headcount reaches the statutory exception.
  • Computer hardware and its systems software sit in Class 50 at 55% while other software is Class 12 at 100% subject to the half-year rule, and we line purchases up with your fiscal year end accordingly.
  • Interest on money borrowed to earn business income is deductible under paragraph 20(1)(c), and travel to campus visits, a home office and professional development are each tested for reasonableness under section 67 before they are claimed.
  • We watch the $3,000 net tax owing instalment threshold and tell you in advance of the year you will cross it, so instalments start because they were planned rather than because interest arrived first.
  • Fee income, retainers and school commissions for each unfiled year are reassembled from deposits, issued invoices and the engagement letters themselves, which gives the return a documented foundation instead of a reasonable-looking guess.
  • We test each missed year separately on the active business question, because claiming the small business deduction retroactively across a run of years with one dominant payer compounds the original mistake instead of closing it.
  • Where a characterisation does apply to an earlier year, the computation is rebuilt on the paragraph 18(1)(p) basis and the section 123.5 amount is included, which is the part a self-prepared catch-up return invariably misses.
  • Working forward from the earliest missing year caps how long penalties and arrears interest have to compound, and on a backlog of several years the sequence by itself moves the closing figure materially.
  • For years that are properly overdue, Form RC199 opens a Voluntary Disclosures Program submission that has to be lodged ahead of any CRA contact, be complete, and relate to information at least a year late.
  • When CRA asks why a fee was billed at 0%, we produce the engagement letter, the evidence of non-residence obtained at the time and the record of where the client was at each exchange, which is what the provision turns on.
  • Subsection 152(7) permits CRA to assess in a manner other than the one the return reported wherever the records fall short, and once it has done so the onus of displacing the figure moves to you.
  • CRA has an active administrative focus on personal services businesses, so where a single-payer corporation is screened we answer with the contracts, the billing history and the working arrangements rather than conceding the label.
  • On an equipment review we show the Class 50 and Class 12 pools and the undepreciated capital cost each is carried at, which subsection 13(21) defines, so the claim is checked against documents instead of recollection.
  • A reassessment that is simply wrong gets a Notice of Objection from us, and where the penalties and interest grew out of an earlier adviser’s mistake we apply separately for relief on Form RC4288.
  • Two comparative years of compilation engagement financial statements, prepared under CSRS 4200, are what a bank or a commercial landlord wants before extending credit to a practice whose only real asset is its client list.
  • Domestic taxable fees and zero-rated fees are presented as separate revenue streams, because a reader who cannot see the split cannot tell whether the HST returns and the income statement are telling the same story.
  • Retainers collected for advice not yet delivered are shown as deferred revenue apart from fees earned, so a reader can distinguish money you have received from work you have actually performed.
  • Equipment and software are carried at net book value across Class 50 and Class 12 rather than in one lump, because the two classes behave completely differently in a forecast and a lender reads them differently.
  • The delivery date is fixed with you when the records arrive, because a lease or a credit decision that has to be made before the next intake opens cannot sit behind an accountant who will not commit.
  • We answer the dominant-client question before we incorporate anything, because for an adviser whose billings run almost entirely to one payer a corporation can leave you worse off than the proprietorship you started with.
  • Where incorporating is right, we set the company up in Ontario with the name search, the articles and the share classes, and the first $500,000 of active business income then carries the combined small-business rate.
  • The business number and its HST and payroll accounts are opened at the outset, so a company that bills its first advisory engagement in month one is charging and remitting properly from that invoice onward.
  • Moving an existing practice into the company is a disposition, so we elect under section 85 on Form T2057 at amounts that defer the gain, and the elected figures then set the opening Class 50 and Class 12 pools.
  • The chart of accounts separates domestic and zero-rated fees, unearned retainers, school commissions and client concentration from day one, which means two years of postings arrive already in the shape a return needs.
  • Bank records, issued invoices, engagement letters and adviser agreements are turned back into a ledger, so two intake cycles of unrecorded trading end up as something a return can actually be prepared from.
  • We reconstruct which engagements were treated as zero-rated and whether the evidence of non-residence exists for each one, because a caught-up set of books that cannot support the export position is not caught up at all.
  • We recover input tax credits buried in unentered software subscriptions, devices, professional dues, travel and subcontractor invoices, which across two neglected years is routinely the single largest cash recovery in the engagement.
  • We rebuild the asset schedule item by item and separate computers and systems software in Class 50 from other software in Class 12, because a neglected file almost always arrives as one undifferentiated pool.
  • Associate wages and payments to outside advisers are traced back to the slips that were actually issued, so the catch-up return rests on money that genuinely left the account instead of a balancing entry.
  • Where a family or an institution outside Canada pays you, the HST characterisation and the corporate return are two separate questions, and we settle each on the facts rather than letting one answer stand in for the other.
  • A United States citizen or resident among your owners pulls American reporting into a Canadian company, so we run both sets of filings as one engagement rather than leaving each side to guess what the other has done.
  • Immigration status, study permits and foreign professional licensing are not accounting questions, and we say so and send them to the right adviser rather than offering you a confident answer we are not qualified to give.
  • Only a small share of advisory practices hold assets abroad at all, but where an owner’s holdings trigger the foreign property reporting obligation we prepare Form T1135, which is an information return in its own right and not a schedule of the corporate return.
  • Where a shareholder lives outside Canada, a dividend paid out of the corporation attracts Part XIII withholding and is reported on an NR4, which again reaches only a minority of the practices we act for.
  • We bring a practice forward on years where 13% was never charged on domestic advisory fees, an error that compounds quietly across cycles in a business issuing a few hundred invoices a year.
  • We bring forward fees that were billed at 0% to a client nobody ever documented as a non-resident, because the obligation to verify and obtain that evidence sits before the invoice and cannot be satisfied afterwards.
  • We bring forward a corporation that claimed the small business deduction in years when the active business question had never been tested, and restate those years on the correct footing before CRA selects the file.
  • Acceptance turns on three things: nobody approached you first, nothing is held back, and the information is a year or more overdue. We confirm each and rebuild the years before Form RC199 goes in.
  • We are straight with you about what the programme does: where a disclosure is accepted, penalty relief follows, and we will not tell you that coming forward removes the possibility of CRA reassessing the years you disclose.

Educational Consultant Tax Health Check

Six questions on whether each fee is characterised before it is invoiced, whether you record where a client was when they dealt with you, whether your client concentration is measured, whether the structure decision was actually taken, whether you know your registration position, and whether the records behind each return are kept. No fee shown.

1. Do you decide whether a fee is taxable at 13% or zero-rated before you invoice it?

2. Do you record where each client was located at the time they dealt with you?

3. Have you measured what share of this year’s billings comes from your largest single client?

4. Has the choice between incorporating and remaining a proprietorship been reviewed with a CPA?

5. Do you know whether your rolling four-quarter taxable revenue is above or below $30,000?

6. Are the records and working papers behind each year’s return kept for at least six years?


Free CPA Consultation for Educational Consultants

Case Studies: Educational Consulting Accounting & Tax

Kemptville Admissions Adviser — The One-Client Corporation

The problem: An adviser near Kemptville incorporated on the strength of the small-business rate and then spent three years billing almost everything to a single international recruitment agency, which supplied the work, set the fees and reviewed the files. The corporation claimed the small business deduction every year and deducted a home office, a vehicle, subscriptions and professional development against the income. Nobody had ever asked whether the company was carrying on an active business at all, and the consequences of the answer had never been priced.

What we did: We set out the consequence stack in writing rather than in the abstract: no small business deduction and no general rate reduction, so a federal rate of 28% being 38% less the 10% abatement and without the 13% general rate reduction; a further 5% of that income added to Part I tax by section 123.5; Ontario at its general rate of 11.5%; and paragraph 18(1)(p) reducing deductions to a short list on which the home office, the vehicle and the subscriptions do not appear. We then restructured the engagements and the billing so the question stopped being close, and documented the reasoning for each year.

The result:

  • Consequence stack quantified as components, before CRA raised it
  • Deductions paragraph 18(1)(p) would have denied identified and removed
  • Engagements and contracting parties restructured for the open years

Campbellford Placement Consultant — The Campus Visit That Cost the Zero-Rating

The problem: A Campbellford consultant placed students from three countries into Ontario independent schools and billed every overseas family at 0% on the basis that the client was not resident in Canada. The practice was right about the residency and wrong about the provision. Each family flew in for a week of campus visits, met the consultant in person, and continued the engagement from Canada for several days. Paragraph 7(a) excludes a supply made to an individual who is in Canada at any time when that individual has contact with the supplier in respect of the supply, and paragraph 7(a.1) excludes a service rendered to an individual while that individual is in Canada.

What we did: We reviewed every engagement against where the family actually was at each point of contact, separated the files that remained outside the exclusions from those that did not, corrected the affected returns, and rewrote the engagement letter and the booking process so a Canadian meeting is recorded as a tax fact at the time it happens. We also put a verification step ahead of invoicing, so evidence of non-residence is obtained before a fee is billed at 0% rather than hunted for afterwards.

The result:

  • Engagements re-tested against paragraphs 7(a) and (a.1), not residency alone
  • Canadian points of contact now captured as they occur
  • Evidence of non-residence obtained before any invoice goes out

Mount Forest Curriculum Consultant — Unregistered and Absorbing the Tax

The problem: A Mount Forest curriculum and school improvement consultant had stayed below the registration threshold on purpose, believing that advice to schools was an exempt educational service and that registering would simply add 13% to every invoice. Neither belief was right. Consulting is a taxable supply, the practice had passed $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters two years earlier, and because the supply is taxable the credits on a new laptop, the software, the professional dues and the travel had been recoverable the whole time and were simply being absorbed.

What we did: We established the quarter in which the threshold was actually crossed, registered the practice, filed the outstanding returns, and recovered the input tax credits under section 169 on the equipment, software and travel that had been bought in the meantime. We then set a monthly report showing the rolling four-quarter total and the taxable and zero-rated fee streams side by side, so the registration position is a number on a page rather than an assumption.

The result:

  • Registration back-dated to the quarter the threshold was crossed
  • Input tax credits recovered on equipment, software and travel
  • Rolling four-quarter taxable revenue now reported monthly

How the Engagement Runs

How We Work With Educational Consultants

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

Documents We Ask For

Prior T2 returns and notices of assessment, your engagement letters and fee schedule, the client list with residency and contracting party marked, commission agreements with partner schools, subcontractor agreements, equipment and software invoices, payroll records and bank statements.

Step 2

First Month: Cleanup and Setup

QuickBooks Online or Xero set up against your engagement files, the Class 50 and Class 12 schedules rebuilt from purchase documents, client concentration measured for the first time, and every engagement characterised as taxable or zero-rated with the evidence attached.

Step 3

The Monthly Cycle

Domestic and zero-rated fee streams reported separately, unearned retainers held out of revenue, the rolling four-quarter taxable total updated, the HST return prepared with input tax credits claimed, and any payroll reconciled to the PD7A.

Step 4

Planning Each Quarter

The active business question re-tested as your client mix moves, how the owners are paid, equipment and software timing across Class 50 and Class 12, reasonableness on travel and the home office, and instalments against the $3,000 threshold.

Step 5

Closing the Year

Trial balance, the taxable and zero-rated split agreed to the HST returns, deferred retainers settled, the capital cost allowance claim finalised, statements prepared, and the T2 with GIFI filed.

Get Your Educational Consulting Taxes Done Right Today

Clear Pricing for Educational Consultants

Affordable Pricing for Educational Consultants

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 Educational Consultant Accountant

Two people handle your file and they do not change. One principal and one accounting specialist decide the characterisation on every engagement, build the T2 and sit across the table at each planning review.

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

More than 1300 five-star reviews, left by owners of advisory, consulting and other professional practices in Ontario and further afield.

Serving Educational Consultants Across Ontario

Our CPA practice supports educational consultants, admissions and placement advisers and school improvement practices throughout Ontario. We know why a consulting fee is taxable rather than exempt, what section 123.5 adds once a corporation is characterised as a personal services business, and why a non-resident family meeting you in Canada can take the zero-rating off an engagement that otherwise qualified.

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)

Educational Consulting Accounting & Tax FAQs

Do I charge HST on educational consulting fees?
Yes. Advising a family, a school or a board is a taxable supply, so a fee supplied in Ontario carries 13% HST, and that holds whether you are advising on admissions, a placement, a curriculum review, a school improvement plan or test preparation strategy. The credit side matters just as much and is the part consultants overlook. Because the supply is taxable rather than exempt, the input tax credits on your laptop, your software subscriptions, your professional dues, your travel and your rent are recoverable under section 169. An operator whose revenue is exempt gets none of that. Your posture is the better one, and it is only worth something if you are registered.
Is what I do an exempt educational service?
Almost certainly not, and that is good news rather than bad. Advisory work is not the supply of instruction. You are selling judgement about institutions, applications, programmes and placements, and a consulting service of that kind is taxable at 13% in Ontario. The practical consequence runs in your favour: an exempt supply carries no input tax credit at all, whereas your taxable fees leave the credits on everything you buy to deliver the advice recoverable under section 169. Where a practice genuinely delivers instruction as well as advice, the treatment of that activity is a different question on a different part of the Excise Tax Act and we settle it on your facts rather than by analogy.
Do I charge HST to a family or a school outside Canada?
It depends on the provision your engagement is tested under and on the facts, not on the client’s postal address alone. Section 23 of Part V of Schedule VI zero-rates a supply of an advisory, professional or consulting service made to a non-resident person, and that is the provision an advisory practice is generally tested under. Its exclusion is litigation-related: it reaches a service rendered to an individual in connection with criminal, civil or administrative litigation in Canada, other than a service rendered before such litigation commences. Section 7 is the general export provision and carries a different and wider set of exclusions. Which one applies to a given engagement is a question we answer before you invoice, not afterwards.
Can a family’s visit to Canada cost me the zero-rating?
Yes, and this is the most expensive thing on this page. Paragraph 7(a) excludes a supply made to an individual who is in Canada at any time when the individual has contact with the supplier in respect of the supply, and paragraph 7(a.1) excludes a service rendered to an individual while that individual is in Canada. CRA’s own example is training supplied to a non-resident corporation whose employees come to Canada: it is not zero-rated, because the service is rendered to individuals while they are in Canada. Read onto an advisory practice, a family abroad who flies in for a week of campus visits and sits down with you here can defeat the zero-rating on the engagement. The defence is recording where the client was at every point of contact, as it happens.
What evidence do I need before I zero-rate a fee?
Evidence of non-residence, obtained and on the file before the invoice goes out. The obligation is on the supplier to verify the client’s status and to hold evidence of it, and it is an obligation that sits ahead of the supply rather than after a review has started. In practice that means the engagement letter identifies the contracting party, the residency evidence is collected at intake, and the file notes where the client was for each exchange. Hold all of it for the six years section 230 asks for, at least. The discipline matters because of subsection 152(7), which lets CRA assess on a basis of its own choosing where the records will not carry what the return claimed, and the job of dislodging that figure then becomes yours.
Am I an agent or a principal on a commission from a partner school?
It turns on what you actually agreed to do, and the answer changes both your revenue and your HST. If you contract with the family and buy in the school’s involvement, you are supplying your own service and the whole fee is yours. If the school engages you to find and support students and pays you a commission for doing so, the supply you are making is to the school, and the school’s residency becomes the relevant residency for the export question rather than the family’s. Agreements written loosely often read both ways at once. We read the agreement, decide which characterisation it actually supports, and make the bookkeeping follow it consistently.
Could my corporation be caught by the personal services business rules?
Only the facts of your own arrangements can settle that, so what follows is the test and not a verdict. Subsection 125(7) describes a corporation whose business is providing the services of an individual, the incorporated employee, where that individual or someone related to them is a specified shareholder and where, stripping the company out of the picture, the individual would reasonably be seen as an employee of the payer. Two ways out are written into the definition: more than five full-time employees kept on throughout the year, or services provided to an associated corporation. Working through a dominant-payer file, and arguing it, is laid out on our engineering consultants page. The question this page takes up is the one after it, which is the price of the label.
What does the personal services business label actually cost?
The consequences stack, and they are worth stating as components rather than as one headline number. First, the income is not active business income, so there is no small business deduction and no general rate reduction: the federal rate is 28%, being 38% less the 10% abatement and without the 13% general rate reduction. Second, section 123.5 adds a further 5% of the corporation’s taxable income from that business to its Part I tax, reported on the T2 as additional tax on personal services business income. Third, Ontario applies its general rate of 11.5%, not the lower rate. Fourth, paragraph 18(1)(p) limits deductions to a short list, on which the incorporated employee’s salary, wages and related benefits or allowances, certain expenses of selling property or negotiating contracts and the legal costs of collecting amounts owing appear. Compare that to 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) on active business income and the size of the swing is obvious. CRA has an active administrative focus on these corporations, so it is worth knowing where you sit before somebody else decides.
Can I claim the small business deduction, and at what rate?
Two conditions have to hold together: the company must be a Canadian-controlled private corporation, and the income must be active business income. Where both do, the first $500,000 is taxed at 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) in Ontario, made up of 9% federal and an Ontario lower rate of 2.2%. That Ontario rate was 3.2% up to 30 June 2026, putting the old combined figure near 12.2%, so a company whose year runs to 31 December 2026 apportions between the two rates instead of picking one. For a consultant the second condition is the live one. Income from a personal services business is not active business income at all, so a corporation billing a single payer that has never looked at the question may have been claiming a deduction that was never available to it.
Is incorporating worth it for an adviser working on their own?
Incorporating gives you a separate legal entity and, on active business income, the combined small-business rate on the first $500,000, which is worth something only to the extent profit stays in the company. For an advisory practice there is a prior question that matters more. If nearly all of your billings run to one board, one agency or one partner school, incorporating can leave you worse off than the proprietorship you started with, because a characterisation of that kind removes the rate advantage and restricts your deductions at the same time. There is also a cost on the way in that nobody mentions: moving an existing practice into a company is a disposition of what you already own, which is why the transfer is elected under section 85 on Form T2057 at amounts that defer the gain rather than simply signed over. Taken together those are the two things to hear at once, that the transfer in is a taxable transaction to be planned, and that the rate you incorporated for may not be waiting at the other end. So the order of operations is the point: answer the dominant-client question first, structure the engagements second, and incorporate third. We do it in that order.
Do I need an HST number if I am billing less than $30,000?
Not strictly, but you probably want one. The obligation to register arrives when taxable revenue across four consecutive calendar quarters goes above $30,000; underneath that figure registering is your choice. For a practice in its first year or two the choice usually comes out the same way. Early spending is concentrated in a laptop, software subscriptions, dues, a website build and travel, and the tax on all of it is money you simply donate to the system while you are unregistered. Boards, agencies and schools that pay you claim the credit themselves, so adding 13% costs them nothing. We look at your billing forecast next to your planned purchases, decide, and then keep the four-quarter figure on the monthly report so the obligation never arrives as a surprise.
What can I deduct, and can I deduct a campus visit trip?
The ordinary rule is that an expense incurred to earn business income is deductible, and the limit on it is section 67: an outlay must be reasonable in the circumstances. Travel to visit a campus you are advising on is deductible where the purpose is the engagement and the record shows it, which means an itinerary, the engagement it relates to and a note of the business days. A trip that carries a family holiday inside it is apportioned, not claimed whole. Interest on money borrowed to earn business income is deductible under paragraph 20(1)(c). Computers and their systems software go into Class 50 at 55%, other software into Class 12 at 100% subject to the half-year rule. One caution: where that characterisation applies, paragraph 18(1)(p) removes most of this, which is why characterisation is settled first.
I am behind on my returns. What now?
Start now, and start before CRA starts. A missing year never quietly expires, and every month it sits adds penalty and arrears interest to whatever the eventual balance turns out to be. For properly overdue years the route is the Voluntary Disclosures Program on Form RC199: it has to be lodged before CRA contacts you, nothing can be held back, and the information has to be a year or more late. Where that is accepted, penalty relief follows. We will not tell you it closes off a reassessment, because it does not. A separate route, taxpayer relief on Form RC4288, deals with penalties and interest that built up through something outside your control or an earlier adviser’s mistake. On an advisory file the heavy lifting is the reconstruction itself, because each year has to be rebuilt with the taxable and zero-rated fees separated and the evidence for the split actually present.

Related Industries We Serve

Immigration Consultants

  • Fees to clients outside Canada
  • Retainers held until earned
  • Domestic and zero-rated streams split

Engineering Consultants

  • The personal services business test itself
  • Dominant-payer billing argued on the facts
  • Subconsultant and milestone revenue

Executive Coaches

  • One-payer engagements screened early
  • HST on coaching and workshop fees
  • Reasonableness on travel and home office

Corporate Trainers

  • Training delivered to visiting participants
  • Subcontracted facilitators on Form T4A
  • Unfiled years reconstructed and submitted

Educational Consulting Accounting & Tax Done Right.

T2 filing with the active business question tested before the small business deduction is claimed, because income from a personal services business is not active business income: no small business deduction, no general rate reduction, a federal rate of 28% being 38% less the 10% abatement, a further 5% added to Part I tax by section 123.5, Ontario at 11.5%, and paragraph 18(1)(p) cutting deductions to a short list — against 11.2% (from July 1, 2026) on the first $500,000 of active business income of a CCPC. 13% charged on domestic advisory fees with input tax credits recovered under section 169, the export question settled under section 23 of Part V of Schedule VI or under section 7 and its paragraph 7(a) and 7(a.1) exclusions, and evidence of non-residence obtained before any fee is billed at 0%. Computers in Class 50 at 55%, other software in Class 12 at 100%, Form T4A for subcontracted advisers, and records kept for the six years section 230 requires. AFFORDABLE fees agreed before the engagement starts, so advising a family never costs you an unpredictable bill. A CPA firm registered in Ontario. 1300+ five-star reviews. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.



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