The floor is written off on the lease, not on the floor
A permanently installed sprung floor in leased premises is a leasehold improvement, which puts it in Class 13: written off straight-line over the lease term, with a minimum five-year spread, rather than at a rate tied to the asset itself. That makes the lease negotiation a tax decision. Sign a short term with a renewal option and the write-off runs over the combined period; commit to a major floor before the lease terms are settled and you may stretch the deduction over more years than you intended.
Landlord money changes the math too. A cash inducement toward the build-out is either income or a reduction of the improvement's cost, and a rent-free period has its own treatment. Both belong in the plan before the offer to lease is signed, not discovered at filing.
Not everything in the build-out is Class 13
What is built into the leased space and what merely stands in it land in different classes, at very different speeds.
| Build-out item | Treatment |
|---|---|
| Permanently installed sprung floor and subfloor | Class 13, straight-line over the lease term (minimum five years) |
| Change rooms, partition walls, lobby millwork | Class 13 with the rest of the leasehold |
| Roll-out marley and portable sprung panels | Class 8 equipment at 20% declining balance |
| Freestanding barres, portable mirrors, sound systems | Class 8 at 20% |
| Front-desk computers and tablets | Class 50 at 55% |
| Refinishing an existing floor | Usually a current repair, deducted in full |
The line between a repair and an improvement deserves attention every summer. Restoring the floor you have is generally deductible now; replacing it is capital on a schedule. We map the contractor's quote line by line before the work starts, because an invoice split correctly at the source beats an argument with a reviewer later, and we make sure the split carries through to the corporate filing.
Time the spend against the year-end
CCA begins when an asset is available for use, and the first-year claim is generally reduced by the half-year rule, so delivery dates matter. For a studio with an August 31 year-end, mirrors installed in August start their schedule a full year ahead of the same mirrors installed in September. Summer, when the rooms sit quiet, is both the practical window for construction and, planned deliberately, the efficient one for tax. Pricing those decisions before the money moves is the standing work of Tax Planning & Advisory.
Buying the unit redraws the map
Established studios sometimes end the lease question by purchasing a commercial condo unit, and every rule above changes at the door. Class 13 disappears, because there is no lease term to write against: the building portion of the price lands in Class 1, eligible for a 6% rate where a separate-class election is filed for a building used at least 90% for non-residential purposes, while the land under it never depreciates at all. That makes the split of the purchase price between land and building a number worth supporting, and it puts the sprung floor inside an owned unit on the building's schedule rather than a lease's.
HST turns in the studio's favour here. Because dance instruction is taxable, the space is in commercial use, so a registered studio buying commercial real property self-assesses the tax on closing and claims the offsetting credit on the same return instead of financing 13% of the price out of pocket. Whether the unit belongs in the operating company or in a separate corporation that rents it back is a genuine structure question, since the two corporations would be associated and share one small-business limit, and it is answered best before the offer is signed, not after.
Owner pay across a ten-month year
Tuition arrives from September to June; the owner eats in July too. A salary-and-dividend mix set once a year handles both the cash shape and the tax result: salary builds RRSP room and CPP coverage through the steady months, while dividends top up flexibly around the summer trough. And at roughly 12.2% combined Ontario small-business tax on the first $500,000 of active income, profit left in the corporation is the cheapest capital the studio will ever find for the next floor or the next room.
Family adds a layer worth planning rather than improvising. Wages to a spouse or a teenager who genuinely runs the desk, manages costume logistics or assists junior classes are deductible when reasonable for the work done, and they land in low personal brackets. Dividends are stricter: TOSI taxes dividends to family members at the top rate unless an exception applies, such as regular, substantial involvement in the business. We test each family member's role against those rules before a dollar moves, and we set instalments after a strong season so the following spring holds no surprise.
