Price the taxable stream on purpose
Counselling hours have a ceiling; corporate wellness work is where a nutrition practice actually grows, and it is the stream that eventually forces HST registration. The good news is that registration hurts less than most RDs fear: the businesses you invoice generally recover the HST you charge through their own input tax credits, so quoting a workshop at your fee plus 13% costs a corporate client little. Turning down profitable contracts to stay under $30,000 is almost never the right move.
What does need planning is the transition. If your signed contracts make crossing the threshold foreseeable, we register at the sensible moment, reprice open proposals so the tax is added on top rather than swallowed, and start tagging costs for the credit split. A workshop quoted at a flat all-in price before registration quietly loses you 13% of it afterward; a quote written with the tax in view loses you nothing.
Where the next practice dollar goes
Once the practice earns more than the household spends, each additional dollar has competing destinations, and the ranking depends on your facts:
| Destination | When it wins |
|---|---|
| Stay a sole proprietor, top up RRSP and TFSA | Practice profit roughly matches what you live on; corporate complexity would buy nothing |
| Salary from your professional corporation | You want RRSP room, CPP contributions and a smooth, mortgage-friendly income |
| Dividends from the corporation | You value simplicity over RRSP room and will manage the personal instalments they trigger |
| Profit retained in the corporation | Spending is covered; the spread between roughly 12.2% and your marginal rate compounds as working capital |
One lever other professions lean on is missing here: shares of a dietitian health profession corporation can only be held by College members, so income splitting with a spouse is off the table and the plan rests on deferral, pay mix and timing. Any pitch that assumes family shareholders was written for a different profession.
The room the practice runs from
A virtual caseload makes your home the practice's principal place of business, which is exactly what the workspace-in-home rules ask for. A reasonable share of rent or ownership costs, utilities and internet, measured by area and use and documented once, deducts against practice income; the claim cannot create a loss, but the excess carries forward. Equipment follows the capital cost allowance schedule: the laptop and camera in Class 50 at 55%, the desk and chair in Class 8 at 20%.
The professional overhead deducts too, and it is bigger than most solo RDs tally: College of Dietitians fees, professional liability insurance, continuing education that maintains the credential, and the platform stack from Practice Better to That Clean Life. We keep the list current so nothing rides on memory in April.
Instalments and the planning calendar
Planning has dates. Quarterly instalments, personal or corporate, become expected once net tax owing tops $3,000 in consecutive years, and RDs who pair employed hospital hours with a growing caseload hit this earliest, because withholding on the T4 hides the shortfall until the practice outgrows it. Salary from a corporation must actually be paid and remitted during the year, dividends need directors' paperwork before December 31, RRSP room closes 60 days into the new year, and a corporation gets to choose a year-end that fits its cash cycle instead of defaulting to December.
Our Tax Planning & Advisory service turns that calendar into two or three working sessions a year, with each recommendation quoted and documented in writing. If you have a single question rather than a plan to build, a one-time consult is $75 for 30 minutes or $150 for a full hour, and the incorporation fork itself gets a straight answer through our Incorporation assessment before anyone forms anything.
