Hey Everyone!
I am in Ontario and have been told I have to pay commercial tax for my home daycare! Has anyone else been told this? Was it a lot?
Thanks
Printable View
Hey Everyone!
I am in Ontario and have been told I have to pay commercial tax for my home daycare! Has anyone else been told this? Was it a lot?
Thanks
I'm in Ontario and all I have to say is no, no, no, no, no, that person is wrong!
Momof4-Rght?! That is exactly what I thought!!! A rep from MPAC today came buy and came in to assess and I kept saying to her that it made no sense because a lot of home daycare use the whole home so are those people paying double tax? What the heck!!!
You do not have to let them into your home to assess and no there is no commercial tax as you are not zoned for commercial property use.
My insurance company sent an assessor last week about my daycare. I certainly did not get the impression I had a choice about letting them do it. If I hadn't agreed, I'm sure my insurance company would have cancelled my policy. They gave me a rider for $50 per child per year. I haven't heard whether anything the assessor put in her report will cause a problem. I know initially, my insurance company told me I could not use my business name and had to accept cheques in my own name. That was frustrating since my receipts are issued in my business name, and I had to tell parents that they could no longer write cheques to my business. They told me only a registered ECE could operate a home daycare...yes, I told them I was not a licensed daycare, but they said that didn't matter. Idiots...
Treeholm-I don't understand this ridiculousness! If we aren't licensed I just don't get it. This woman didn't say anything about how cheques were written etc. My parents write cheques and I cash them through a business account with my business name-a name I registered with the government of Ontario. I am an ECE...but nobody said anything about that to me.
Where in Ontario are you located because ZONING bylaws are determined by the local government so could be different for someone in Toronto than Ottawa and even within those two cities some 'residential areas' are zoned differently as well so someone in downtown TO might not be able to do something in their residential unit that someone on the outskirts closer to Mississauga might be .... so you would really need to check with your local zoning offices to find out what your address/property is zoned at, if you can operate a home based business out of a residential property or if you need to be zoned commercial and so forth in order to operate your business.
Some areas have rules like absolutely NO home based business and others define it by no more than 10% of your residential home can be used for 'home business' or no more than 25% ... but again the intent of that % is not including 'shared space' like a home childcare might use but dedicated space for business only like a hairdresser setting up a studio, a chiropractor setting up a home office, a lawyer or whatever creating a 'business office' in their home that is only ever used for that purpose.
So my property is zoned 'residential' and as long as no more than 25% of my home is dedicated to solely daycare I am allowed to have a home based business and therefore I pay normal property tax like all my neighbors as a result because I am not operating a commercial daycare and I do not have a 'dedicated' space so am able to use 100% of my SHARED SPACE cause my kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms and even the basement is 'shared' after hours and weekends as residential space and do not count as 'business only space' .... so basically unless you have applied to the Ministry of Education to have your home 'licensed as a day nursery that can take more than 5 children' you are not a COMMERCIAL daycare just a little ole home based daycare and as long as your area is zoned to operate a home based business you should be fine ;)
Cause that insurance agent is misinformed of the rules .... I am the same as you an RECE here in Ontario and I have a registered business name and so forth for advertizing purposes and my tax receipts have both my business name, my BIN as well as my own legal name and contact info .... if I wanted to open up a business account and get paid by that name I could however I choose to have my clients write cheques in my name and use my personal bank account cause I am CHEAP and do not want to pay for a business account but I COULD if I wanted to and it is none of my 'insurance companies' business cause well it is out of the scope of their jurisdiction ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Daycare123
About HALF of my family are self employed people and they are do it the same way .... honestly my hairdresser even operates out of her home too, she has a home based business ryder on her home not a 'commercial' and she too has a business name and a BN to collect HST and so forth but I still make cheques out to her PERSONAL NAME rather than a business because she chooses not to use a business account for banking to save on the extra ridiculous services charges ... the banking options are interchangeable depending on what works for your business ... since we have no employees or accounts payable and receivable accounts like some business have and so forth to worry about it is just easier if desired to save some money with a personal chequing account!
Reggio-VERY HELPFUL thank you! I told the rep that we do use the lower floor for daycare but it is also a play space for my daughter-she was basically trying to make everything pretty easy, which I appreciated! Funny you should mention the cost of a business account-I have actually decided that mine is costing me more than it is worth LOL!
Oh, never, ever allow MPAC in. I don't allow ANYONE in. Unless you basically have a court ordered warrant you are not getting past my front door - and that includes CAS, the Ministry, Police, MPAC - everyone!
Oh, and that MPAC dude is wrong. There are rules local to your city that define what businesses are legally allowed to operate out of a home for no extra business fees etc.
Ya I would not let the MPAC come IN to my house either .... my understanding is they are accessing the property to determine how much city services the property might require and so forth to determine the value of the PROPERTY aka land based on square footage and going rate of homes in area and they can get all that from the outside of the home based on the public records for the amount of electricity and sewage used in this neighborhood and real estate statistics so there is no need to be IN my house at all ;)
Now for my INSURANCE I chose to allow the adjuster to make an appointment to come to the home to do the appraisal to insure we had enough coverage for the replacement value of the home and replacement value of the 'content' and so forth ~ if I had refused to cooperate with that inspection I likely would have found myself without insurance carrier.
BTW it really bugs me when government employees give incorrect information because they are often seen as the 'authority' by Joe Public and therefore Joe is afraid to question or argue or say hey I think you are wrong and ends up getting HOSED by some ill informed government employee who was home sick the day they covered the rule he is now misremembering or what not!
Last two years I have had to argue with CRA when they called me up telling me I had to apply for a GST number because my business revenue was over $35,000 and than the 2nd time I had to demand to speak to a manager because the employee was aliment I was incorrect as there was nothing on her paper in front of her about exempt businesses and even the MANAGER did not believe me when I told her the entire childcare industry is exempt it does not matter how much I earn and I had to give her the URL to their OWN website and wait for her to 'look it up' before she would believe me and put a notation on my file to stop calling every year to 'remind me' cause it was taking time away from my program as they do not call at 'nap time' ... but my point is if I myself had not taken the time to make myself informed to be able to tell her NO you are wrong and I will not do this I would now be charging and collecting GST for the government on my services when it is not legally required driving up the cost of daycare to my clients by 5% ... and it scares me to think how many other less assertive business owners out there ARE charging this cause they got that call and assumed 'oh guess I must do this' :(
Same as when I initially researched into getting the van and transporting the children to possibly do 'school runs' in my neighborhood some dude at the Insurance company tried to tell me I would have to have 'public transportation insurance policy' on my vehicle if I was going to provide transportation for a fee to the public for purpose of business assuming what I was talking about was operating a business for the SOLE purpose of transporting aka like a 'bus/taxi service' and quoted me something like over $3000 a year ON TOP of our regular insurance premium ... so I was left thinking well I cannot afford that almost $300 a month to provide that service and initially dropped it. But than the more providers I met who traveled I was left wondering how the hell do they afford it and found out my dude was WRONG and did not understand what I was asking him and so I did even more research and came back informed with what I actually 'needed' and called and said 'I need a home childcare rdyer added to my vehicle to for engaging in field trips and outings with my crew how much would that cost me' and wham bam thank you mam that only costs an additional $120 a year for the additional liability to transport up to 5 children and that is now how my 'ryder' reads on the vehicle ... so cheaper than bus tickets each week and much more comfy ride for me and the kids ;)
Judy-My husband said the same thing-"just stop answering the door". I am sick of people showing up at my HOME with some kind of entitlement-like I am supposed to let them in! Ugh. Judy can you clarify about the latter part of your comment... about legally running in-home business?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daycare123
It depends where you are. In home business rules are dictated by your city. You need to contact your city offices and ask them. Most cities have rules about what types of businesses can be run in private residences and what type can't, how many square feet you can dedicate, how much additional traffic you can have etc etc.