Every equipment dollar carries its 13% into the CCA schedule
Because chiropractic revenue is HST-exempt, the tax paid on a hi-lo table, a drop table, a shockwave unit or a decompression system is never recovered as an input tax credit. It folds into the asset's capital cost and depreciates with it. That makes the CCA schedule the honest record of what your equipment really cost, and it makes each class and rate worth knowing before you sign the invoice.
| Asset | Class | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Adjustment tables, therapy and rehab equipment | Class 8 | 20% declining balance |
| Clinic computers and hardware | Class 50 | 55% declining balance |
| Treatment-room build-out in leased space | Class 13 | Straight-line over the lease term |
| Clinic vehicle | Class 10 | 30% declining balance |
The class matters more than it looks. A renovation buried in repairs gets deducted wrongly; a computer buried in Class 8 depreciates at less than half its proper speed. We keep the asset register clean so every dollar sits where the Income Tax Act actually puts it.
Buy before year-end, but only when the math says so
An asset earns CCA once it is acquired and available for use, so a table delivered in the final week of the fiscal year still generates a first-year claim, while one sitting on backorder does not. First-year rules have also shifted repeatedly in recent years, immediate expensing came and went, and accelerated first-year treatment carries its own phase-out schedule, which is exactly why the purchase deserves a call before the invoice rather than a shrug after it.
Remember too that CCA is discretionary. In a low-income year, a maternity leave, a slow build after opening, we can claim less and carry the undepreciated balance into years taxed higher. Depreciation you spend against a 12% bracket is depreciation you cannot spend against a 45% one.
Lease-versus-buy deserves the same treatment. Lease payments on a laser or decompression unit deduct as they are paid, while a purchase deducts slowly through CCA but leaves you owning the asset; with no input tax credits in play, the 13% rides along in either case. The right answer depends on your income curve and how quickly the technology dates, so we price both paths against your actual bracket, not a rule of thumb.
Owner pay in a corporation only members can own
The dividend-sprinkling playbook other professionals lean on is closed to chiropractors: every share of a chiropractic professional corporation must be held by a CCO member, so a spouse cannot hold shares and no family dividends exist to plan around. The levers that remain are the honest ones. A salary to a spouse who genuinely runs billing, booking or marketing, set at a rate you would pay a stranger, deducts cleanly. The owner's own mix of salary and dividends gets set each year, not inherited from last year.
Salary creates RRSP room and CPP contributions and smooths personal cash flow; dividends skip payroll remittances but build no retirement room. Underneath both sits deferral: profit left inside the corporation is taxed at roughly 12.2% on the first $500,000 in Ontario, and the gap between that and your personal marginal rate is the engine that funds equipment, an associate's first months, or the next clinic. We size the draw to what your household needs and let the rest compound at the corporate rate.
A calendar, not a scramble
Good planning is mostly sequencing. Before fiscal year-end: equipment orders confirmed and in service, the salary-dividend split decided, any bonus accrued so it can be paid within the 180-day window. Through the year: corporate and personal instalments recalculated when income moves, so no February surprise. After year-end: a short debrief on what changed, because a new associate, a retail push past the HST threshold or a lease renewal each rewrites part of the plan.
This runs as a standing Tax Planning & Advisory engagement, priced in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, with the owner's return handled through Personal Tax Filing so both sides of the plan land consistently. Still practising as a sole proprietor? The deferral math above only exists inside a corporation, and our Incorporation page for chiropractors covers when that switch actually pays.
