Barrie accountant for trades, small businesses and tax returns

Barrie is the biggest market around here. At the 2021 census it had 147,829 people in the city and 212,856 in the wider census metropolitan area. It's a single-tier city, so it sits inside Simcoe County on the map but isn't run by the County. Your building permits, bylaws and business property taxes all go through the City of Barrie.

The city annexed land from Innisfil on January 1, 2010. Highway 400 and the GO Barrie line, with stations at Allandale Waterfront and Barrie South, connect it straight to the GTA. If your jobs take you down the 400 about as often as they keep you in town, that should show up in your books.

When your jobs are split between Barrie and the GTA, the kilometres add up quickly. To back up how much of your truck or van use is for business, CRA expects a logbook with the destination, reason and distance for each business trip. Once you've logged one full year, CRA accepts a three-month sample logbook in later years, as long as your business use stays within 10% of that first year. I'll tell you what to keep from the start so you're not trying to rebuild it at tax time.

Tax rules are the same outside the city limits. A Barrie business charges the same 13% Ontario HST as one in Toronto, and CRA and WSIB rules apply across the province. What changes is how busy you are and how far you drive. That's where monthly books, keeping up with HST and a cash flow forecast really help.