Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Yeah, I did like the thought of the manual G70, although apparently it wasn't that great of a gearbox. I could have lived with it, I'm sure. Talk about a great car to lease, too, with questionable resale value.
I had a 6-speed Mini Cooper S that I sold last summer. It was funnish, but ultimately just not good enough. Would plow a corner prematurely so I couldn't push it like I felt like I should be able to. A little slower than I wanted. Lazy throttle (I did end up fixing that with some gizmo I installed between the gas pedal and the ECU). I don't know, it was fun for a bit, but I got tired of it really fast.
Not an accountant, but this is my understanding.
I have a main corporation that pays my holding company that, in turn, pays me personally.
Everything is taxed as it moves down the line.
So say I make $100 in the main corp. Then to get it out, I have to pay my holding company, where say I'm taxed like 15% or something. Then I have to get it from the holding corp to me personally, where I pay, say, 22%. So that $100 goes to $85, then down to $66.30 before I can spend it personally. Now I'm buying a car with 35% less buying power to do it personally versus through the corp.
Same goes for registration, insurance, maintenance, winter tires, etc. It's a big savings to do it through the corp.
The other thing is you don't want your main corp really turning a profit (or much of one). You have to get the money out of the corp before year end, or that is taxed, too, in addition to your holding company and then you personally.
Can my company justify a vehicle lease or is it a grey area? This wouldn't be grey. I have offsite meetings pretty much daily and would use the company vehicle. It's not one of those gaming-the-systems things. It's a totally legitimate-by-any-measure write-off that would raise no red flags.
Another bonus for me is I would sell my CLS. That I do own personally and outright, so then it frees up the cash I have in that for other things and I no longer pay for insurance, maintenance, etc. with after-tax dollars on that vehicle.
|
I’d document every single time you drive it. If you ever get caught up in an audit, the CRA is ruthless with personal use.
My dad had a full on cargo van for work. Panel van, no carpet, no rear seats, ladder rack etc. For 6 years between him and his accountant they wrote off what they thought was acceptable expenses for a vehicle very clearly a work vehicle.
A few years of disputed auditing, the CRA determined he didn’t document his use well enough, accused him of using the van to perform personal duties like going to grocery store and driving his children around (yes, in a two seated cargo van) and my dad ultimately was hit with $26k in tax owing. He exhausted all his options and couldn’t afford a lawyer to fight the case, including clear indications of either CRA ‘incompetence’ (like sending required notifications to the prior addresses AFTER having correspondence with his current address on file). Ultimately it cost him his business, access to credit and future earnings.
And this wasn’t some guy driving a flash sports car paid through a company. He was self employed and used this van every day for legitimate work. I’m sure his accountant was under qualified, but the details continue to dumbfound me.
I don’t trust those ####ers, at all. And I would be very, very careful when considering personal use of a business expense.