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Edmonton Bookkeeper | Shareholder Loans And Dividends In Corporations


Jim Collins, author has been quoted as saying “a culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness, and Edmonton bookkeeper says business owners who are learning how to pay themselves and their corporation should draw upon that culture of discipline. Learning how to pay themselves in business is a learning curve, and knowing how to do that properly can help business owners efficiently tax plan in their own life, but also avoid significant tax assessments.

Business owners should understand what happens when they draw money out of their corporation. What this does, is it adds to their shareholder loan account. When they take money out of their business, they over the company back that money and it is kept as a running total. Edmonton bookkeeper says on the other side of that, every time they pay money into their corporation, that’s also money that their corporation owes them back. Both of those balance are kept as a running total for the lifetime of the business. A business owners need to keep extremely good track not only of all of the money that they have taken out of their business, with all the money that they are putting into the business as well.

That money doesn’t exist in the shareholders loan for ever says Edmonton bookkeeper, the business owner needs to clear the money that is owing to the corporation. The way that is done says Edmonton bookkeeper, is by including it in the personal tax refund. All entrepreneurs who draw a salary or dividends will pay personal taxes this way. Once they have declared their personal tax amount, this clears the shareholders loan balance.

Edmonton bookkeeper says that by monitoring their shareholder loan, can help a business owner prevent unnecessary personal tax. They put their money into the shareholders loan account, and this way they can account for it more easily. They can then monitor their account much easier, and then take one amount out of that account and live off of it.

Business owners also need to understand that they can be very difficult to review historical shareholder loan balances. It may be required from time to time by an accountant or the Canada revenue agency, so keeping great records is very important from the beginning. Edmonton bookkeeper says the best practice is to create a brand-new bank account, and all of the shareholder draws will come out of that account. What this does, is makes it very easy to see all of the activity in the account, because there should be very few of them. By limiting these transactions and making it much easier for businesses to see what’s going on in their account, they can also fix any errors that have happened, as well as help CRA look into their account if needed.

By understanding how business owners can pay themselves dividends and salary from their corporation, business owners can tax plan more efficiently, and avoid unnecessary personal taxes.

It’s extremely important for business owners to understand that they can’t just create a paycheck for themselves and pay themselves from their business that way says Edmonton bookkeeper. The best use shareholder loans in order to draw salary and personal dividends from the corporation. If business owners aren’t sure how to effectively do this, they could either end up paying unnecessary personal taxes, or they could even be hit with a significant tax payment from CRA without warning by not clearing their shareholder loan properly. It can be straightforward for business owners to learn how to pay themselves from their corporation, but doing so incorrectly can be devastating.

One of the most important and first things that businesses should understand when it comes to taking money out of their business, is that every time they take money out of their business, that adds to their shareholder loan account. Every time they take money out, they owe that money back to the corporation and it is owed as a running total, meaning every time they take more money out they will owe more money back. Edmonton bookkeeper says this is also true for money that they have put into their corporation. They may have gone a salary, but they may have also paid more in corporate expenses from their personal account. If this is the case, then the amount they are owed from the corporation is weighed against the amount that they owe their corporation.

Business owners who take out shareholders loans, in the form of dividends or salary, owe that money back to the corporation however says Edmonton bookkeeper, they tick the money as salary in order to live off of that money, and were not preparing to give that back to the corporation. So what they need to do in order to stop owing the corporation says Edmonton bookkeeper, is to declare the amount that they’ve taken out of the business on their personal taxes. Once they’ve declared all the money that they’ve taken on the personal taxes, that effectively clears the shareholders loan balance back to zero.

It’s extremely important for business owners to stay on top of keeping track of all the money that they take out of their business for the entire life of their business, because it may be necessary from time to time for business owners or their accountants to review historical shareholder loan balances. Since this is an amount that is kept as a running total since the beginning of the corporation, business owners need to keep great records and stay on top of all of the various loans they have taken from the business, as well as paid back to the corporation and every time they have cleared the shareholders loan balance., says Edmonton bookkeeper.

By learning how to effectively pay themselves salary and personal dividends using shareholder loans, how to appropriately clear those loans, business owners can minimize personal tax payments as well as avoid being assessed for not clearing their shareholders loan on time.