The yard is the tax return
Walk the yard and you are looking at CCA classes. Each class pools its assets and depreciates at its own rate, and the first-year claim turns on when a machine is available for use, which is why a truck delivered in the last month of your fiscal year still earns a claim that year while one delivered a week later waits twelve months.
| Asset | CCA class | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Trucks and trailers | Class 10 | 30% declining balance |
| Mowers, plows, salters and blowers | Class 8 | 20% declining balance |
| Skid steers and loaders | Class 38 | 30% declining balance |
| Small tools under $500 | Class 12 | 100% in the year of purchase |
CCA is also permissive: you may claim less than the maximum. In a weak season we sometimes bank the room rather than burn deductions against income that is barely taxed, and spend it against a stronger year. That is a choice made deliberately at filing, from a plan, not by whatever the software defaults to.
Buy, finance or lease
The tax answer and the cash answer are different questions, and both belong in the decision before the dealer visit:
- Financed purchase: you claim CCA plus the interest, and the full 13% HST is recoverable as an input tax credit up front, a meaningful cash event on a plow truck.
- Lease: payments are deductible as paid and HST credits arrive payment by payment, which smooths cash but front-loads nothing; the buyout terms decide whether it was really a purchase in disguise.
- Timing: a purchase just before year-end accelerates the first claim; one just after defers it to a year that may need the deduction more.
Walla Assaf spent a decade in banking and corporate finance before founding the firm, so equipment financing is not an afterthought here. When a lender package or a better structure is needed, Business Financing Advisory runs alongside the tax plan.
Trading and selling without a surprise
Sell or trade a machine for more than the class's remaining undepreciated cost and recapture follows: past deductions come back into income. Because assets pool by class, a single disposal rarely triggers it while the class still holds other equipment, but sell the last truck in Class 10, or a nearly written-off skid steer, and the bill arrives with the deal. A trade-in is a disposal at the trade value, so a year of fleet turnover deserves a planning look before the paperwork is signed, not at filing time. Where a machine sells at a genuine loss against the pool, a terminal loss is only available once the class is empty, which changes the order in which you dispose.
Fuel, repairs and the small stuff
Fuel is fully deductible, but coding it by vehicle does two extra jobs: it shows which truck is eating the margin, and it survives a review without argument. The pickup that goes home at night needs a logbook, because personal use of a company vehicle is a taxable-benefit question the CRA asks often. Repairs are deducted when they restore a machine and capitalized when they improve it: a new set of mower blades is an expense, while a plow package added to a truck joins its CCA class.
Handheld gear churns fast in this trade. Trimmers, blowers and saws under $500 apiece are written off in full through Class 12, while the larger units pool in Class 8, so the receipt detail matters more than the total. Keeping those receipts organized also protects the input tax credits behind them, which add up across a season of fuel and parts.
Instalments round out the plan. A two-peak cash year means corporate instalments should be checked against the season, and a strong snow winter should trigger a mid-year recalculation rather than an April surprise. The reserve mechanics for prepaid snow contracts sit on our landscaper tax services page; here the point is simply that the plan knows about them before December.
A plan on the calendar
Tax Planning & Advisory for our landscaping clients runs as scheduled checkpoints: a pre-season review before the spring ramp, an equipment and instalment check ahead of year-end, and remuneration decisions, salary against dividends, settled while there is still time to act on them. Whether the business should be incorporated at all, and what that changes for a two-season operation, has its own page. Fees are quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so planning never arrives as a surprise line item either.
