Dividends

When dividends are taxed • Corporate side: • Corp earns profit. • Pays corporate tax at the applicable rate. • What’s left (after-tax profit) is available for dividends. • Personal side: • When the corp actually pays you a dividend, you report it on your personal return. • Canada applies a gross-up (to simulate the pre-tax corporate income) and then a dividend tax credit (to recognize the corp already paid tax). • You pay personal tax on the net result, based on your bracket.

So: corp pays its tax first; then you personally pay tax when dividends are declared/distributed.

Paying yourself in dividends

• Dividends are not added “as is” — they’re grossed up first: • Non-eligible dividends (from small business income): grossed up by 15%. • Eligible dividends (from high-rate taxed income): grossed up by 38%. • After gross-up, you apply your marginal tax rate. • Then you get a dividend tax credit (DTC) that reduces your tax, reflecting that the corp already paid corporate tax. • Result: the net tax on dividends can be lower or higher than salary depending on your income level and whether dividends are eligible or not.

• Dividends do not create RRSP room and don’t trigger CPP.