The good news is that there wasn’t anything overly devastating for dentists. We were worried, leading up to the release of the 2016 federal budget, that the Liberals would try to mess around with dentistry professional corporations. For example, like requiring that they have a minimum number of employees to qualify for the small business tax rate (currently 15.5%). This would have been brutal for smaller practices and associates practicing through a dentistry professional corporation. Or eliminating or lowering or making it even more difficult for dentists to qualify for the lifetime capital gains exemption. So what big changes to corporate taxes did the Liberals introduce? Basically, they kept the small business tax rate at 15.5% instead of reducing it to 15% which is what the previous government has proposed. And for certain businesses carrying on business as a partnership (namely, law and accounting firms), it makes them harder for them to multiply the small business tax rate and save taxes where the partners have provided services to the partnership through a professional corporation. Although dentists are not out of the waters yet, they can breathe a little easier this year because the Liberals didn’t try to do anything overly devastating with small businesses which employ 90% of the private labour force in Canadians – particularly those which operate through the use of a corporation.
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