You spent a decade becoming a surgeon or specialist. The income followed. Now there’s money building up inside your Medicine Professional Corporation faster than you can spend it, and the questions have changed, this isn’t about what you can deduct anymore.
We work with incorporated specialists and surgeons across Ontario from our Toronto and Oakville offices, on the questions that matter once the practice is established: what to do with retained earnings, how to pay yourself, and how to build real wealth inside and outside the corporation.
Cassar CPA Professional Corporation
Cassar CPA Professional Corporation
Cassar CPA Professional Corporation
Cassar Business Services Inc.
Once your income clears a certain level, generic tax advice stops helping. Here’s what changes when you work with us:
When your corporation earns more than you draw, the surplus piles up, and how you invest it matters more than another receipt. Leave too much passive income in the corporation and you can quietly lose part of your small business rate. We watch that line for you and plan the corporate investment mix around it, so your money keeps working without tripping the rules that catch high earners.
At your income level, the salary-versus-dividend question isn’t a rule of thumb, it’s a calculation that shifts with your RRSP room, your spending, your spouse’s income, and what you’re saving for. We run the numbers on your actual situation and set a compensation plan you can adjust year to year, rather than defaulting to whatever you did last year.
High-earning specialists usually have more than a T2 to think about: personal tax, a growing investment portfolio, insurance, sometimes a spouse’s practice or a rental property. We look after the corporate and personal picture together, so the pieces line up instead of pulling against each other.
Most accountants are happy to file your corporate return and call it a year. That’s not the help a successful specialist needs. Our founder, Matt Cassar, has spent fifteen years advising incorporated professionals on exactly this stage, the point where the practice is humming, the cash is accumulating, and the real money is made or lost in how you structure what comes next. We believe reducing your tax and growing what you keep are two halves of the same job. That’s the work we do.
Here’s what working with us looks like:
We start by looking at how you’re set up: your Medicine Professional Corporation, how you’re paid, what’s accumulating, whether a holding company makes sense, and where your tax is higher than it needs to be. You get a clear read on your current position and where the opportunities are.
The money you don’t need today is the money that builds your future. We plan how surplus cash is invested inside the corporation, when it makes sense to draw it out, and how to keep passive income from eroding your corporate tax rate, so retained earnings become a real asset, not a tax problem waiting to happen.
We set your salary-and-dividend mix around your whole picture: RRSP contributions, your spending needs, your spouse, and your long-term goals. Then we handle the personal returns so nothing falls through the gap between your corporation and your household.
At some point you’ll wind down the practice or sell it. We help you plan for that well ahead of time, protecting the wealth you’ve built inside the corporation and setting up the eventual exit so it’s efficient rather than expensive.
“Their diligent approach and personal care have saved me thousands of dollars in taxes over the years!”
"You simply won’t get this quality of service from a big firm.”
“I’ve been working with Matt for a while now and I recommend him as much as I can to my friends and family”
“Cassar CPA has saved me a lot of time, money, and headache!”
“We love Matt and his team! We use them for our NFP organization and they’re always fast, flexible, and knowledgeable”
“Fantastic and knowledgeable team with very forward thinking practices.”
"Matt and his team provide clients efficient and speedy turnaround on monthly accounting and year-end services, while at the same time acting as an advisor on various finance matters.”
If you’re an incorporated specialist or surgeon and the surplus in your corporation is growing faster than your plan for it, that’s exactly the conversation we’re built for. With offices in Toronto and Oakville, we work with high-earning physicians across Ontario. Let’s set up a discovery meeting to review your structure and where we can help you keep more of what you earn.
That’s the right question to be asking, and the answer depends on your goals, your spending, and your timeline. Broadly, surplus cash can stay invested inside the corporation, be drawn out over time, or move into a holding company, and each path has different tax consequences. The one thing you don’t want is to let it accumulate without a plan, because passive investment income inside the corporation can start eroding your small business tax rate once it climbs high enough. We look at your full picture and map out where the money should go.
For a high-earning specialist, there’s no single right answer, it depends on your RRSP room, how much you actually need to live on, your spouse’s income, and what you’re saving toward. Salary creates RRSP room and pays into CPP; dividends don’t, but can be simpler and are sometimes taxed more favourably. In practice most specialists use a mix, and the right blend shifts year to year. We calculate it against your real numbers rather than reaching for a rule of thumb.
Maybe. A holding company can add flexibility, moving surplus cash out of your Medicine Professional Corporation, holding investments, and adding a layer of creditor protection, but it also adds cost and complexity, and it isn’t right for everyone. Whether it makes sense depends on how much you’re accumulating and what you’re planning for. We’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth it in your situation.
Start earlier than you think you need to. The wealth you’ve built inside your corporation needs a plan for how it comes out, over your remaining career, in retirement, or through a sale, and the most efficient strategies take years to set up, not months. Planning ahead lets you take advantage of things like the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption where it applies, and structure the wind-down so you’re not handing an unnecessary share to CRA. We build that plan with you while there’s still time to shape it.
Cassar CPA Professional Corporation works with incorporated specialists, surgeons, and high-earning physicians across Ontario from our offices in Toronto (WaterPark Place, 20 Bay Street) and Oakville (132 Trafalgar Road).
Toronto · Oakville · Mississauga · Brampton · Vaughan · Markham · Richmond Hill · Etobicoke · Burlington · Milton · Halton Hills · Other GTA & Halton Region Communities
Toronto Office
WaterPark Place 20 Bay Street, 11th Floor
Toronto, ON M5J 2N8
