Benefits of a Home Based Business in Canada

You probably know a handful of family members, friends, or acquaintances whom are now running some sort of business from home. Whether they’re doing it full-time or part-time in the evenings and weekends, more and more Canadians see home-based businesses as an opportunity to benefit their lives.

According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 Labour Force Survey, there were 2,656,800 self-employed individuals in Canada. This number includes self-employed professionals, but also Canadians who own their own home-based business.

Why are hundreds of thousands of Canadians starting home-based businesses? Because owning a business in Canada provides you with many income-generating and tax-savings benefits. Add on top of that the convenience of working from home, and it’s a really attractive business proposition for many Canadians.

What are some of the benefits of owning a home based business in Canada?

• Profits – With traditional jobs, workers exchange time for money. You clock 8 hours, you get paid for 8 hours of work. The alluring aspect of owning your own business, though, is the opportunity to generate profits rather than earning a wage. And as well-known international speaker Jim Rohn says:

“Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.”

• Tax-savings advantages – Operating a home based business in Canada is just like running any other business when it comes to income taxes. If you have an income to write it off against and you abide by the CRA rules, you can deduct many costs as business expenses, lowering the amount of taxes you have to pay.Owning a home-based business though gives you additional income tax deductions that you can claim. Many of the home and transportation costs you’re already paying for may be shared expenses for your home-based business. What this means is that you may be able to claim a portion of these costs as business expenses, as they’re necessary to operate your business! This translates to legitimate tax-savings that will keep more of your income in your pocket.
• Convenience – Nowadays, with internet access, a laptop, and a cell phone, you can operate a business from anywhere in the world. And this includes your home! Better yet, the internet and cell phone costs (or a portion thereof) become business expenses. Operating a business from home often means being able to spend more time with your family and having the freedom to run errands when you need to, because you dictate your own schedule.
• Low Start-up Costs – There are dozens of home-based business opportunities available for you to consider, many of which provide all of the products, training, branding, and marketing material you need to get started. In most cases, the cost of starting a home-based business is very small versus the cost of opening a store, a restaurant, or other type of non-home based business.
• International Growth Opportunities – With the internet, the world has become a much smaller place than it may have been decades ago. Nowadays, it’s become much less complicated for businesses to gain international customers and if you have your own website for your home-based business you could conceivably be making sales while you sleep!