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Originally Posted by 68style
^ She wants the limited liability due to the nature of what she sells and possibility for litigation if something happened.... She's paranoid in my opinion but I can't really blame her wanting to protect her home and stuff
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While the T2 may not be complex, you are getting financial statements which can be used for banking, investors, GSA's... so many uses that an accountant may not know about. As such, an accountant does a fair amount of work to mitigate any risk to them (ie. Do you actually have $160,000 in the bank - lets find out by asking for a bank statement!!) and so on. This whole process takes about a day for the simplest of businesses. Then comes our time, in addition to making a living and years of education and continued pd, we are also in it to make a fair profit. You can find a $20/hr basement accountant but you get what you pay for. Your sister doesn't need a Multinational audit firm - she needs a neighbourhood CGA.
The $800 engagement the only user is CRA and if you read the engagement letter, you will notice, the client takes on ALL of the risk - the firm is at no risk. The difference is cost is the risk premium the accountant takes.
I hope the above helps you understand our business. Most accountants do a horrible job of explaining this to their clients.
Are you able to share what she sells?
There are a lot of realtors who are sole proprietors because a PREC (personal real estate corp) does not make financial sense. That imo is the most riskiest everyday job I can think of right now. One small error and suites up the wazoo.