The cheapest trade to enter is the trickiest to time
A painting business can begin with a ladder, an airless sprayer and a few hundred dollars of brushes, which is why so many run as sole proprietorships on a T1 and stay that way past the point it costs them. Incorporation is not a graduation ritual; it pays when specific things become true. Profit starts staying in the business after your draws, because the corporate rate of roughly 12.2% on the first $500,000 only helps money that remains inside. A crew goes on payroll. Property managers start asking who, exactly, they are contracting with. None of that is a revenue figure, which is why we time the move from your numbers rather than a rule of thumb.
| Signal | Why it points to incorporating |
|---|---|
| Money is left in the business after your personal draws | Retained profit is taxed near 12.2% instead of your marginal rate, and funds next spring's crew and paint |
| The first painters go on payroll | Employment obligations and contract exposure grow with every hire, and belong inside a company |
| Commercial and condo work is on the table | Property managers and GCs contract more readily with a corporation carrying its own insurance and clearances |
| Your quotes carry a workmanship warranty | A warranty is a multi-year promise, better made by the company than by you personally |
Liability the way painters actually meet it
Painting rarely faces catastrophe claims; it faces surface claims. Overspray drifting onto a neighbour's car, a tipped five-gallon on site-finished oak, stain tracked across an occupied office, a warranty call on peeling exterior trim two summers later. Working in occupied homes and finished spaces means the downside is constant, mid-sized and personal. A corporation puts contract and warranty claims against the company rather than your house. It never shields you from your own negligence, so liability insurance stays the first line of defence and the corporate shield the second.
What the corporation does not change
HST is indifferent to structure: painting is fully taxable at 13%, and the $30,000 small-supplier threshold arrives within a busy season either way. WSIB follows the work, not the paperwork. Coverage in construction is mandatory, and incorporating adds a wrinkle rather than an exit, since a corporation's executive officers generally need coverage as well. The carve-out matters more to painters than to most trades: home-renovation work retained directly by the occupant of a private residence sits outside mandatory coverage, so a repaint company working only for homeowners can be outside the system, and a single new-build subcontract or condo corridor job pulls it in, complete with the clearance certificate every GC must hold before paying you.
Set-up in season order
Our Incorporation service sequences the mechanics around a painting calendar:
- A year-end that follows the season. The first fiscal year-end can be set anywhere up to 53 weeks out; an October 31 year-end closes the books as exteriors wrap and puts T2 preparation into winter downtime instead of peak booking.
- Roll the business in, not just the name. The van, the sprayers, the scaffold and the goodwill in a repeat-client list can move into the corporation on a tax-deferred section 85 rollover; transferred casually, they become taxable dispositions.
- Bank account before booking season. Deposits on booked jobs should land in the corporation's account from day one; a deposit ledger split across personal and corporate banking is a bookkeeping mess and a bad look in any review.
- Registrations in dependency order. Business number, then HST so input tax credits on equipment start counting, then a payroll account before the first crew cheque, with WSIB and insurance matched to the work you actually take.
- Paper in the corporate name. Quotes, contracts, the warranty wording and supplier trade accounts all say the company, or the shield you incorporated for does not apply.
Not every painter is there yet. A solo repainter with no crew often does better staying a sole proprietor with CPA Quick Support at $99 a month for quoting, HST and CRA-letter questions until the first hire changes the math. And the day the corporation exists, the owner-pay and season-smoothing questions begin; that is Tax Planning & Advisory work, and it starts well before the first year-end. We incorporate painting companies across Mississauga and the GTA, quoted in writing after a free 15-minute call.
