How Baker Tilly Toronto Helps Clients Stay on Top of Ever-Changing Taxation Laws

Having challenges with your taxes and reporting? Rocky Bhatia from Baker Tilly Toronto can offer his expertise and assistance.

Taxes are an inevitable part of life, and they’re getting more complex—especially for Canadians with property or business operations outside of Canada. Along with rapid taxation changes affecting how much tax one pays, government authorities are legislating compliance audit activities that require individuals to complete myriad complex forms with supporting documentation. Failure to do so can lead to stiff penalties.

Tax experts with cross-border expertise

How’s an individual or company to know all these intricacies? That’s where Baker Tilly comes in. The Baker Tilly Canada Cooperative is an association of chartered public accounting firms, supporting individuals and businesses with connections to Canada, the U.S., and globally, offering a full complement of tax and advisory services across every major industry sector. Baker Tilly Toronto is one of its network partners and focuses on clients in film, media & TV, real estate, technology, insurance, and automotive manufacturing. “We work a lot with mid-market, owner-managed kinds of companies and help them comply with the tax legislation in all jurisdictions where they do business, so they don’t get caught off guard by the rules,” says Rocky Bhatia, Partner, Tax at Baker Tilly Toronto. With many Canadian companies growing and expanding into U.S. and global markets, having proper tax structuring strategies are critical. “Though we in Canada are very integrated with the U.S. economy, the laws are not the same,” says Bhatia. “One common problem I see constantly is people relying on their own research, so they might do something like set themselves up as a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) structure, which is fine for U.S. based companies and individuals, but can lead to double taxation if your headquarters is in Canada,” he says. Another tricky area is cross-border tax and reporting. “There’s a high degree of reporting that needs to be done on both sides of the border, and in a timely fashion to avoid any non-compliance issues with the law,” says Bhatia. “The problem is many smaller and mid-sized companies don’t have in-house tax expertise on their payroll to help them with that. That’s why it’s important that business owners get information from experts like us who understand the taxation laws of both countries and can help them with proper tax structuring and reporting,” he says.

So you can concentrate on your business, not taxes

Having a proper and efficient tax planning and compliance strategy proactively puts you in a position where you can focus on your business rather than your taxes. “As a bonus, you’ll also be in a better position to secure external financing when they need to borrow capital because lenders these days are extra cautious about lending to business owners who are not compliant with the taxation laws,” says Bhatia.

We work a lot with mid-market, owner-managed kinds of companies and help them comply with the tax legislation in all jurisdictions where they do business, so they don’t get caught off guard by the rules.