Canada briefings

Salons & barbers

Cafes & coffee shops

All owner-operated businesses

All owner-operated businesses · 2026-08-25

From 1 October your bookkeeper adds 7% PST, and you cannot claim it back

Open the folder where your bookkeeping invoices live. Whatever the last one said, the next one after 1 October 2026 says the same number plus 7%. British Columbia is putting provincial sales tax on accounting and bookkeeping that day, and the part that matters is not the rate. It is that PST has no equivalent of the GST refund you are used to, so this one stays on your profit line for good. There is also a legal way to keep two months of it off your bill, and that door shuts on 30 September.

All owner-operated businesses · 2026-08-19

Ten cents a litre comes back on 8 September. Your own tank is the small part

Labour Day, Monday 7 September, is the last day of the federal fuel tax holiday. From Tuesday 8 September the excise tax is back at 10 cents a litre on gasoline and 4 cents on diesel, and nobody is going to send you a letter about it. The honest arithmetic first, so you do not overreact: a van doing 300 km a week pays roughly $187 a year more. The reason to keep reading is not your own tank. It is the fuel surcharge line on your supplier invoices, and the fact that gasoline is already 25.7% dearer than a year ago with this tax sitting at zero.

Cafes & coffee shops · 2026-08-12

CPP is being cut for the first time. It is worth about $2 per $1,000 of payroll

If you have staff, your CPP bill is about to go down. Not by much, and not automatically. Here is the exact size of it on a real payroll, why your payroll software is right to still say 5.95%, and why the wage floor rise in October will take back more than January hands you.

All owner-operated businesses · 2026-08-05

Salary or dividends? The tax difference is the small part of this decision

Here is the short answer most owners never get told: the total tax you pay is usually close either way, and the parts that are not close are CPP, RRSP room, and from January, which province you are in. Salary means a CPP bill of up to $9,292.90 in 2026 and you fund both halves of it yourself. Dividends mean none of that, and no RRSP room at all, ever. This page gives you the arithmetic on all three, plus the two provincial changes landing on 1 January 2027, so you walk into your accountant's office asking a better question.

Salons & barbers · 2026-07-30

Ontario cut your salon tax rate on 1 July, then scheduled a matching rise on the way the money reaches you

Nothing changed federally this year. The small business deduction is still 9% on your first $500,000. What changed is provincial: Ontario and Quebec both cut their share from 3.2% to 2.2%. For an incorporated salon that is worth real money, but only the part you leave in the company, because Ontario is taking the other half back in January 2027 through a route almost nobody reported.

All owner-operated businesses · 2026-07-20

Canada scrapped the tax hike on selling your business. Here is what you actually keep in 2026

If selling up is anywhere on your horizon, the tax picture for 2026 is friendlier than the last two years of headlines made it sound. The hike that was coming for anyone with a big gain got cancelled, the rate stays where it was, and there is a $1.25 million exemption that can take your tax bill on a sale to zero. Here is what you actually keep when you sell, and the one structural catch that decides whether you get any of it.

Cafes & coffee shops · 2026-07-14

Ontario's minimum wage goes to $17.95 in October. The 35 cents is not the problem.

If you run a cafe or restaurant in Ontario, here is your headline: the general minimum wage goes from $17.60 to $17.95 an hour on 1 October 2026, up 35 cents, about 2%. That is a small rise, and it is smaller still once you see how it works. The useful part is not the number. It is that Ontario told you in April and does not start charging it until October, and it goes up like this every year. Here is what the increase actually costs you on your own roster, and how to make the six-month head start pay for itself instead of quietly eating your margin.