Canadian businesses have one additional day to work with this year to comply with the T4 submission deadline.  February 2012 is a leap year, so February 29, 2012 is the deadline.

If there are any withholding deductions outstanding, payment can be made online.

Through My Payment Online system:

Use My Payment to make one or more payments in one simple online transaction using your financial institution’s secure online banking service. You can use this service if you have access to online banking at a participating financial institution.

Financial institution participants are:

• BMO Bank of Montreal
• Scotiabank
• RBC Royal Bank
• TD Canada Trust

You can also pay through the telephone and internet banking at the following banks.
ATB (Alberta Treasury Branches)
BMO Financial Group
Bank of America
CIBC
Canadian Western Bank
Citibank
Credit Unions (participating branches)
Mouvement Desjardins
HSBC
J.P. Morgan
Laurentian Bank of Canada
National Bank of Canada
Royal Bank
Scotiabank
TD Bank Financial Group (for Small Business)
TD Bank Financial Group (for business)

For more information, go to CRA website here.

Under the current rules (before January 1, 2012), as an employer you have to stop deducting CPP contributions from an employee’s pensionable earnings when the employee is 60 to 70 years of age; and gives you proof that he or she is receiving a CPP or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) retirement pension .

New rules
Starting January 1, 2012, you may have to deduct CPP contributions from the pensionable earnings you pay an employee who is 60 to 70 years of age, even if the employee is receiving a CPP or QPP retirement pension.

Under the new rules, an employee who works and receives a CPP or QPP retirement pension will now have to contribute to the CPP if he or she is:
1. 60 to 65 years of age;
2. 65 to 70 years of age, unless the employee has filed an election with you or another employer to stop paying CPP contributions (the election will take effect on the first day of the month following the month the employee provides you with a completed and signed election form);
3. 65 to 70 years of age, if the employee revoked his or her election to stop paying CPP contributions in 2013 or later.

For more information, go to Changes in CPP Contribution Rules.

One solution is to use boiler plate legal forms and revise to suit your needs.  Find contractor & construction forms at canada.FindLegalForms.com. Browse through their comprehensive library & download forms risk free!

If you are a contractor providing services to residential homes and commercial clients, you can find samples for reference at the above link.  These forms are suitable for general service businesses such as plumbing, janitorial, pest control, gardening…..

There are over 10,000 other legal forms available including wills, deeds of sale, divorce documents, power of attorneys….. Forms are different depending on your country of residency, so be sure to select the right country, which is shown as a flag icon on the top right hand side of the website.

Do you have a TFSA Account?  If not, you might be missing a tax savings opportunity!   The Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) is an important investment vehicle that can be used for many different savings objectives over an individual’s lifetime.  Your TFSA allows you to accumulate income growth inside your TFSA account tax-free.   Since the introduction of the TFSA in January 2009, over 4.8 million Canadians have opened one or more TFSAs. To get a TFSA working for you, here are a few key points to remember:

A TFSA can be made up of an array of investments. Your TFSA can contain different types of investments, similar to those in a Registered Retirement Savings Plan, such as Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs), bonds, mutual funds and stocks. Contact your financial institution for more information concerning eligible investments.

TFSA contribution room accumulates every year. The maximum TFSA contribution room for an individual was $5,000 for 2009. For 2010 and 2011, your available TFSA contribution room is made up of three components:

• Your annual TFSA dollar limit of $5,000,
• Your unused TFSA contribution room from the previous year, and
• The total amount of withdrawals from your TFSA made in the previous year.    

By three methods we may learn wisdom:

First, by reflection, which is the noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and
third by experience, which is the bitterest.

What would Confucius say to those who experienced business failure?

Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.

Figure it out! How do you lend money to a cash-broke country when you are also broke? Let this financial consultant tell you how.

Accounting Troubleshooters Canada is pleased to be a part of a global movement to embrace, inspire and encourage entrepreneurship.   Entrepreneurs can change the world,  we hope to  inspire more young people to choose entrepreneurship as their career of choice.

Canada Revenue Agency classifies training expenses or professional development courses into two categories:

1.  Capital expenditures – training expenses incurred for the purpose of learning a new skill unrelated to current occupation is considered a capital expenditure, as this new skill has a lasting benefit.
2.  Current expenditures – training expenses incurred for the purpose of maintaining, updating or upgrading current skills in order to be able to continue in the profession or employment is classified as current expenditure and therefore tax deductible.
For more details,  click here

My first experience with KOBO is reading the book “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Hansson. I love paper books and I would be the last to buy an ereader, but having received one, I now must learn to love my Kobo. I was told that my KOBO can hold up to 1000 books, so the beauty or benefit of KOBO is that “Rework” shall stay in my KOBO for as long as I want while I build my library of 1000 books. Imagine an entire library that would fit nicely inside my purse. Mindboggling! I am beginning to appreciate and love the idea!

Needless to say, my KOBO kept me awake on the night of my birthday, as I couldn’t put it down. “Rework” is completely entertaining for an entrepreneur, and I love its simple wisdom, and the way the authors present ideas in easy to read short essays. Here are some of the topics:

* Learning from mistakes is over-rated
* Scratch your own itch
* No time is no excuse
* You need less than you think
* Launch now
* Interruption is the enemy of productivity
* Good enough is fine
* Long lists don’t get done
* Say no by default
* Don’t write it down
* Press releases are spam
* Marketing is not a department
* Send people home at 5

Your business logo should tell everything that your business stands for in an image, a tagline or a combination of both. Various companies adopt various techniques to achieve the perfect business logo. This is because a business logo is your first, and sometimes the last, impression of your business ideas.

Importance Of Logos

Logos are such an intrinsic part of our lives that we often fail to value their importance. A telephone logo on a signboard tells us there is a phone booth in the vicinity. Water flowing from a tap indicates presence of running water. The three stripe logo outside a shoe store tells you that Adidas shoes are available. The golden arches forming a yummy M outside an eatery tells you that you will get your favorite McDonalds snack inside. One look at the ‘one side bitten into’ apple on a signboard, and you know it is Apple Inc and that you can trust its quality without any hesitation.

Creating or designing business logos are neither child play nor a Herculean task. What you need is clarity of thought, precision in designing and a thorough knowledge of aesthetics. It is good to remember that no two logos depend on the same element of design. McDonalds uses color and shape (bright yellow M on a red background), Apple uses an image (a bitten into apple) and Coca Cola focuses on typeface. But all the three are equally recognizable and unique in their own ways.

Excerpt taken from http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Swati_Banerjee
Swati Banerjee is the owner of Writing Ink, a web content management firm based out of India, that services clients from across the globe. Please take a minute to visit http://www.writing-ink.com to experience how the bright young minds here make magic with words!

A good logo should:

* be protected (or at least protectable) under Trademark law.
* be easy to remember.
* be easy to recognize.
* attract attention.
* suggest product benefits or suggest usage (note the tradeoff with strong trademark protection.)
* suggest the company or product image.
* distinguish the product’s positioning relative to the competition.
* be attractive.
* stand out among a group of other logos.