Why Aren’t There More Court Cases?

There are about 80,800 restaurants in Canada (CRFA), and about half are audited every four years.  That’s a lot of restaurants being audited, and you just know that the majority of them receive reassessments at the end of each audit. Rather interestingly, there are only about 10 significant court cases involving restaurants that had been [...]

Read Full Post »

A False Sense of Security

Many restaurant owners think they’re protected from the tax auditors, simply because they have a good accountant.  While that’s true in some cases, just about every restaurant that gets hit with a tax audit reassessment (and usually a large one at that) had a “good accountant”! In Canada, every restaurant that appealed tax audit reassessments [...]

Read Full Post »

Beware Harried Ontario Tax Auditors!

When the Ontario government repealed the Retail Sales Tax (RST) in favour of the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), it transferred audit and collection activities to the Canada Revenue Agency.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Ontario restaurants can forget about the old RST! Ontario is still responsible for auditing the old RST for periods up to [...]

Read Full Post »

Auditors Don’t Know Your Business

Here’s a bold statement:  tax auditors don’t know your business. It’s true!  You know it, I know it, even the tax auditors know it! As a result, you may think you have an advantage over the tax auditors.  Unfortunately, you don’t.  What tax auditors lack in knowledge they make up for by making assumptions about [...]

Read Full Post »

Qualities of a “Good” Restaurant Accountant

Here are the top five qualities of a “good” restaurant accountant: Understands your restaurant and uses this knowledge to offer strong advice for improving your operations and finances; Analyses sales, expenses and margins to identify problems and improve profitability; Provides sound tax advice to legitimately maximize your deductions and minimize your taxes; Ensures that you [...]

Read Full Post »