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Steve Morton

Canadian LLC?

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I've just spent several hours trying to figure out if it's at all possible to form an LLC in Canada.

 

So far, the only info I have is that there is no statue for forming one in Ontario.

 

However, you may be able to form an "extra provincial limited liability company" :wacko: at the federal level, that then has be registered at the provincial level.

 

I tried to get some more info by calling around some places that seemed to deal with this sort of thing, and all I got was some french guy who I could barely understand, and obviously had no idea what an LLC was tell me that "a corporation has limited liability". ;) (I doubt that Americans trying to do this in the U.S. would run into this kind of a problem.) :lol:

 

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience or knowledge pertaining to this issue, since there seems to quite a few Canadians here.

 

Has anyone here formed an LLC north of the border?

 

If it's not feasible to form an LLC in Canada, what's the next best thing, particularly when it comes to law suit protection?

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Hi Steve,

 

I'm new to this forum, but thought I'd try and answer this question. As far as I understand it, your best bet since we don't have LLC up here is to incorporate. You can get a corporation at the federal level if you think you'd like to do business in more than one province. Then you register your business in each province you'd like to do business in under the corporation.

 

Alternatively you could incorporate at the provincial level if you just want to do business in one province. I have an Ontario Inc. for my 1st business and am about to incorporate federally for a real estate business, then we'll (husband & I) register in Ontario first. If we want to do business in say, Alberta, we'll register there as well but again under the federal corporation. I want as much protection and tax benefits as possible and in Canada, a corporate structure seems to be the way to go. You can get that kind of information at your local Small Business Centre.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Andrea

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Thanks Andrea.

 

I've done some research on this, and it seems that my best course of action is to simply form a sole proprietorship.

 

I can then look at the possibility of forming a corporation in the future, when it makes more sence for tax puposes.

 

Of course, this means that I'll be on the hook personally, for anything related to my business. :rolleyes:

 

Why we don't have LLC's here is beyond me. It would make things so much easier. B)

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Sorry I missed this, I don't often look in this forum.

 

From a tax standpoint it's far better to operate as an individual or a sole proprietor in Canada.

 

Also from what I understand a single-employee corporation doesn't offer you any additional legal protection either. If your corp gets sued so do you. The only time it makes sense to incorporate is when you have employees. Personally I'd rather outsource any work an employee would otherwise do. Who needs all the additional paperwork involved with incorporating anyway?

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