The archive
Is Corporate-Owned Life Insurance Tax-Deductible? Almost Never, and the One Exception
The first question every incorporated professional asks about corporate-owned life insurance is whether the premiums are deductible. The answer is almost always no, and the case for the strategy was never about deductibility anyway.
The Capital Dividend Account: How Life Insurance Creates Tax-Free Corporate Money
Every private corporation has a way to pay out money with zero personal tax. Most incorporated professionals have never checked their balance. Here is how the CDA works and what feeds it.
Capital Gains Inside a CCPC: Rates, the Cancelled Hike, and Spreading Gains
Half taxed, half tax-free, and a timing decision that can swing the bill by $30,000. What portfolio capital gains actually do inside a CCPC in 2026, with the numbers.
Five Ways to Manage the SBD Grind, Compared With Numbers
The grind can cost an Ontario practice up to $30,000 a year. These are the five levers that actually move the number, applied to the same practice and compared in dollars.
The Prior-Year Trap: How Last Year's Passive Income Cuts This Year's Small Business Deduction
The $50,000 passive income test doesn't look at this year. It looks at last year. That one-year lag is where most of the expensive surprises live, and where all of the planning leverage sits.
RDTOH Explained in Plain Language (Including NERDTOH vs. ERDTOH)
The 50% tax rate on corporate investment income is only half the story. A big piece of it is a deposit, not a cost, and it comes back when the corporation pays dividends. Here is how the refund actually works.
What Counts as Passive Income in a Corporation (and What Doesn't)?
Interest counts. Unrealized gains don't. Dividends depend on who pays them. The exact checklist of what enters your corporation's AAII, and the common moves that don't change the number at all.
Beyond the RRSP: the Individual Pension Plan for incorporated professionals
For most Canadians the RRSP is the cornerstone of retirement saving, and it stays useful after incorporation. For some established owner-managers, an individual pension plan can provide more deductible retirement funding, subject to its costs and restrictions.
5 tax-planning mistakes incorporated dentists make with retained earnings
Your corporation earned well this year. After paying yourself, there is a healthy balance in the corporate account, maybe $200,000, maybe $500,000, maybe more. What happens next is where many incorporated dentists and physicians quietly lose money.