Price every plan at the gross number
Because childcare is HST-exempt, a centre recovers none of the tax on what it buys. The renovation quote, the playground build, the van for field trips, the commercial dishwasher: each really costs 13% more than the number on the paper, permanently. So capital planning starts with a re-pricing exercise, budgets in gross dollars, with the unrecoverable tax folded into the capital cost of each asset, where it at least earns capital cost allowance over time. Leasehold work depreciates straight-line over the lease term in Class 13, furniture and play equipment at 20% declining balance in Class 8, computers in Class 50, the van in Class 10.
The repairs-versus-improvement line deserves respect too. Repainting the toddler room is an expense this year; reconfiguring the space to add licensed capacity is capital, deducted over years. Getting that call wrong in either direction costs money, which is why it belongs in a Tax Planning & Advisory conversation before the contractor is booked, not after.
Owner pay when you cannot raise prices
Inside CWELCC, the revenue side of the plan is largely written for you: fees are capped and funding follows a formula, so you cannot price your way to a better year. That concentrates planning on what you control: costs, capital timing and how profit leaves the corporation. A for-profit centre pays about 12.2% on its first $500,000 of active profit in Ontario, and the gap between that and your personal rate is the deferral worth designing around. Salary builds RRSP room and CPP coverage; dividends skip payroll remittances and build neither; the mix is a decision to remake each year against household needs, not a default carried forward.
A spouse who genuinely runs enrolment, billing or the kitchen can earn a defensible salary for that work, while TOSI makes dividends to family who do nothing in the centre a trap rather than a strategy. And once total payroll passes the Employer Health Tax exemption of $1 million, shared across associated corporations, EHT joins the cost stack, a line worth modelling the year a second location doubles the wage bill. The smaller levers belong in the same annual conversation, the van's operating costs, the home-office share for an owner doing enrolment paperwork at the kitchen table, because small deductions are only worth anything if someone actually pulls them.
Provision for reconciliation day
The annual CWELCC reconciliation is a tax-planning event even though no tax form is involved. If the year's advances outran what the funding formula supports, the difference goes back, and a centre that booked every deposit as income now has a cash problem plus a prior-year profit figure that was never real. We hold likely repayables as liabilities through the year, so reported profit is actual profit and the corporate instalments calculated from it are not financing a number that will reverse. Instalments deserve the same live handling in both directions: a new room opening mid-year moves income, and the schedule should move with it rather than waiting for a February surprise. Nonprofit centres run the same provision discipline for a different reader, a board and a funder rather than a tax return, but the liability is exactly as real.
Decisions on a calendar
Most of this work is sequencing, and the sequence repeats every year.
| When | What gets decided |
|---|---|
| Two to three months before year-end | Capital orders placed so assets are delivered and in use before the year closes |
| Before year-end | Salary and dividend mix set; any bonus accrued so it is paid within 180 days |
| January | Wage grid reviewed against the rising RECE wage floor and the new funding guidelines |
| End of February | T4s and parent receipts out; RRSP contribution closed against the salary decision |
| At reconciliation | Repayable funding trued up against the provision; instalments recalculated |
Capital cost allowance has a seat at this table because the claim is optional up to the maximum: a centre in the slow first year of a new room can bank depreciation for years that will be taxed harder. And if the structure itself is still open, sole proprietor, share corporation or nonprofit, that choice comes before everything above; our daycare incorporation page walks through it. Planning runs as a standing engagement with Personal Tax Filing on the owner's side so both returns tell one story, priced in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call.
