Now that you have a Personal Real Estate Corporation (PREC), we have a checklist of areas you and your team must ensure are being managed and monitored. Then, you can do what you’re best at – buying and selling real estate. Once the systems and processes are set up, it will be relatively straightforward for you and your team.
Monitoring, budgeting and tax planning is an ongoing activity. Rules are changing all the time. An experienced team can act as a sounding board for ideas and planning. Working with many realtors allows us to see things that go really well, and pitfalls to avoid.
From my experience with different provinces, different businesses and alternative planning structures, I see too many frustrated realtors who get lost or buried in the details of:
- Poor bookkeeping, bookkeeping systems, and bookkeepers
- Confusing the legal and tax relationships between an individual and a corporation, who pays taxes, and who files what
- Tracking tax requirements, deadlines and cash flow needs
- Managing regular GST/HST reporting
- Failing to budget for future taxes and tax instalments from an income tax and GST/HST perspective
- Lost in details in how to best remunerate the owner and/or family
Working with your advisors to get a system in place that works for you will avoid these issues and let you focus on your business vs the administrative details.
Checklist of Requirements
With the correct guidance, these activities can be easily dealt with and well worth the cost the tax savings can provide.
- Business Management
- Monitoring the business
- Strategic direction of administration and operations
- Bookkeeping
- Setting up a corporate bank account
- Adequate record keeping for the CRA
- GST/HST new account creation
- Periodic GST/HST filings
- Potential payroll
- Annual filings for remuneration (T4 and T5 reporting requirements)
- Payment of tax instalments, when required
- Accounting
- Annual tax return and financial statements
- Budgeting and cash flow planning
- Tax
- Potential transfer of business tax elections, GST/HST considerations, business valuation
- Periodic tax planning discussions with your advisors
- Legal
- Annual corporate minutes
How can the BDO Realtor Center of Excellence help?
In recognition of the implications of the new regulations and the needs of Ontario’s realtors, BDO has created the BDO Realtor Center of Excellence. For more details on how we can help, see
Should I incorporate my realtor business (PREC)?
Or, you can contact our team at:
- Jameson Bouffard, Leader, National Real Estate Industry (jbouffard@bdo.ca)
- George Simpson, Leader, Accounting (gsimpson@bdo.ca)
- Peter Cuttini, Leader, Accounting (pcuttini@bdo.ca)
- George Dube, Leader, Tax (gdube@bdo.ca)
