Calling someone a contractor does not make them one. The CRA looks at the real working relationship — control, tools, financial risk, chance of profit — and can reassess years of unremitted CPP, EI and income tax. If you are the payer, that bill lands on you, not on the worker.
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Outside Quebec, the CRA follows a two-step approach the Federal Court of Appeal set out in Connor Homes, built on the Supreme Court's decision in 671122 Ontario Ltd. v. Sagaz Industries. Step one asks what the parties actually intended the relationship to be. Step two tests that intention against how the work is really performed. Intention only matters if the facts support it. A signed independent contractor agreement that describes a job you supervise daily is worth nothing.
The factors are control, ownership of tools and equipment, the ability to subcontract or hire helpers, financial risk, responsibility for investment and management, and opportunity for profit. Control is about the payer's right to direct how and what work is done, not whether that right is ever exercised. A worker who sets their own hours, uses their own equipment, can send someone else, and can lose money on a job looks self-employed. One who is trained, scheduled, supervised and paid whether or not the job goes well does not.
No single factor decides it. The CRA weighs the whole picture, and so will the Tax Court if it gets that far. Two workers doing the same task for the same company can land on opposite sides of the line if one carries real business risk and the other does not.
If the CRA rules a contractor was an employee, the payer is assessed for the CPP contributions and EI premiums that should have been withheld — both the employee's share and the employer's share — plus income tax that should have been deducted, plus interest and a penalty for failing to deduct. You can try to recover the employee's share from the worker, but in practice that money is usually gone. The assessment can reach back over multiple years and across a whole class of workers at once.
Ontario law is a separate exposure. Section 5.1 of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 prohibits an employer from treating an employee as if they were not an employee. An employment standards officer can issue a notice of contravention carrying a monetary penalty, or prosecute, or both. The reverse onus that once put the burden on the employer to prove the person was not an employee was repealed effective 1 January 2019, so no statutory presumption helps either side. If it loses, the worker is owed overtime, public holiday pay, vacation pay and termination pay retroactively.
There is also WSIB coverage, vicarious liability for the worker's negligence, and — where the contractor incorporated and works for essentially one client — the personal services business rules, which strip the corporation of the small business deduction and most ordinary deductions and tax it at a punitive rate.
Start with a written agreement that matches reality, then make the reality match it. A genuine contractor invoices, sets their own rate, supplies their own tools, carries their own insurance, decides when and how the work gets done, is free to take other clients, and can put someone else on the job. They are not on your org chart, not at your staff meetings, not using your business cards, and not given a company email address that implies they are staff.
Register the contractor for GST/HST once their taxable revenue crosses the $30,000 small supplier threshold, and pay the tax on their invoices. Do not put a contractor on payroll software. Do not give them benefits. Do not pay them a salary in equal amounts every two weeks with nothing tied to output, because that is the pattern auditors look for first.
If the relationship is genuinely ambiguous, get it settled before the CRA settles it for you. Either party can request a CPP/EI ruling on Form CPT1. A ruling is free, binding on the CRA for that worker and period, and appealable. It is far cheaper than a payroll audit three years later.
Not on its own. Under the Employment Standards Act, employee status cannot be created or removed by agreement — the facts govern, and a contract calling someone a contractor is one piece of evidence among many. The CRA takes the same position. A well-drafted agreement helps at step one of the test, because it evidences the parties' intention, but it fails immediately if the day-to-day working arrangement contradicts it. Write the agreement to describe how the work will genuinely be done, and then operate that way.
Yes. Form CPT1 asks the CRA for a CPP/EI ruling on whether a worker is an employee or self-employed for a given period. Either the payer or the worker can request one, and there is no fee. There is a deadline for asking about a past year, so do not sit on it. If the ruling goes against you, you can appeal it to the Minister and, from there, to the Tax Court of Canada. Getting a ruling on a single representative worker is a sensible way to test a whole contractor roster.
Sometimes. You can deduct genuine business expenses, including a share of home office and vehicle costs, which employees largely cannot. Against that: you pay both halves of CPP, you are not covered by EI regular benefits if the work dries up, you have no vacation pay, notice or termination entitlements, you must register and remit GST/HST once you pass $30,000 in taxable revenue, and you have to fund your own instalments. If almost all your income comes from one payer, look closely at the personal services business rules before incorporating.
Stop volunteering information and get advice before you answer. What you say in an audit interview shapes the file. Advice from a lawyer is protected by solicitor-client privilege and cannot be compelled by the CRA, which is not true of your accountant's working papers. If exposure looks real, there may be options — a voluntary disclosure for unremitted source deductions, relief from penalties and interest, or a negotiated scope — but most of them narrow sharply once the CRA has opened an audit or contacted you about the issue.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.