Tax Accountants: directory of firms

Accounting is regulated provincially. The Chartered Professional Accountant designation is granted under provincial legislation and administered by the provincial and territorial bodies, with CPA Canada acting as the national organization rather than as the regulator. In British Columbia, for example, the provincial body's Act and bylaws provide for licensing individual practitioners, registering firms and issuing permits to corporations, and it runs a practice review program that assesses whether members and firms performing assurance, compilation and other specified engagements comply with professional standards.

A separate licence applies to assurance work. CPA Ontario states that a public accounting licence is required by the lead engagement person responsible for signing reports on an assurance engagement, such as an audit or a review of financial statements, where the report is issued in Ontario and the work is performed mainly in Ontario, and that practising public accounting without a valid licence is prohibited under the Public Accounting Act, 2004. Most personal tax work is not an assurance engagement, which is why preparers without that licence can and do prepare returns.

For filing itself, the relevant credential is an electronic filer number. The agency describes its service as one that lets approved tax preparation service providers file clients' current and prior years' returns using certified software, and says any firm, organization or individual providing tax preparation services can apply provided it meets the requirements and passes the suitability screening, with a renewal every year.

Consumer software handles ordinary slip-based returns well, and many people never need more. A seasonal preparer adds a person who does this all day, which helps when there is self-employment income, a rental or a first year of something unfamiliar. An accountant with an ongoing relationship is worth it when the return has moving parts that interact from year to year, or when planning before December would change the result.

A tax lawyer becomes relevant when the question is legal rather than computational: a disputed position, an audit that is going badly, or a matter where privilege is in play. The two professions work together frequently, and asking your accountant when they would bring in counsel is a reasonable question to put before you need the answer.

Personal returns are often quoted as a fixed fee for a defined return, with additional amounts for extra schedules, rental statements, self-employment income or multiple years. Ongoing advisory work and dealings with the agency are more often billed hourly. Bookkeeping is a separate service from tax preparation, and the biggest single driver of what a return costs is how organized the underlying records are when they arrive.

Get the fee basis and the scope in writing before the season starts, and ask specifically what is included if the agency reviews the return afterwards. Whether responding to a review letter is part of the original fee or billed separately is the question most often left unasked until it matters.

LokalMatch runs tax accountants as a directory. Firms write their own descriptions and you contact them directly; nothing about a listing is an assessment of quality, and we do not sort firms by how good we think they are.

Verification is available to you directly, and it is worth using: the provincial body's register shows whether someone holds the designation and, where applicable, a public accounting licence, and the agency's own authorization service shows which representatives currently have access to your tax account.