Canadian Sellers and tax obligations (Canucks only)

[Canadianleaf]

Canadians flags only

While the Aspkin forums are ripe with information on proper tax routes and options for Stealth accounts regarding EIN, SSN, LLC (LLC does not exist in Canada), there is a lack of info pertaining to Canada.

All law abiding Canadian sellers will have Business Number "BN" with the CRA. You should be familiar with this especially if you collect and remit GST/HST because this number is used when you remit taxes. Whether your legal business structure is a sole proprietor, partnership or corporation each Canadian can only have one BN. The only way to have more than one BN is having multiple corporations. Since a corporation is its own entity, each corp has its own BN.

Business Numbers are required by eBay for Business Registration. Source: [WARNING EBAY LINK] http://pages.ebay.ca/help/newtoebay/...essRegGST.html

Since you can only have one BN, getting a new BN requires forming a corporation. This is not a cheap or easy task. Whether its provincial or federal you are looking at ~$400 just to incorporate. You're filling situation just got x10 more complicated and you are looking at minimum ~$1000 / year in accountant fees for filling corporate returns.

If you have a suspended account with your BN supplied you cannot reuse this or you will be linked.

Canadians, how do you overcome BN requirements? Did you undertake the onerous task if forming a corporation for a fresh BN? If you have multiple accounts did you provide a BN for each account? What is your current situation regarding stealth, GST/HST collection, BN requirements or any general tax headaches how are you overcoming these hurdles?