Real Estate Investing Canada
Should I hold the properties in my name or in a Corporation?
This is one of those questions you will type into Google and find pretty well nothing to answer your question. It will be pretty much based on your current situation - which is quite true. I recommend an accountant who deals with property investors to help you answer your question.
However, I will try to make a bit more sense of it.
I currently own a handful of rentals and continually growing. A majority of them are held under my name and some are in my Corporation. For me right now, it is fine to have some of the rental properties in my personal name. I get a few extra tax write offs and lower financing rates through residential lending. As soon as you incorporate your financing goes to commercial lending. There are new rules in Ontario about how many mortgages you can hold on the residential side. Currently it is five (this changes often). (Once you have passed the number of residential mortgages you can have you must use commercial lending to continue with your purchases.)
The properties that I placed into my Corporation I plan to build and sell. This keeps my tax rate much lower. If I did this in my personal name the profits would be taxed on top of my personal income at the end of the year. I am also planning to add more rentals into my corporation with the intention on growing the business and turning the income into a "Business income" to reduce the tax rate.
What are the tax implications of holding it in your personal name compared to a corporation? In your personal name the additional income from your investments gets added on top of your income at the end of the year. This can put you into the next higher tax bracket all depending on how much money you currently make.
Looking at a Corporation - it is deemed as investment income (if you have less than 5 employees working for you) you will pay 50% tax on all profits.
*If you have 5 full time employees your tax rate drops to 18%
What if someone slips and falls and sues you? This can very well happen to anyone. It is very important that you have liability insurance of at least $2M. You can add an umbrella policy to go higher if you choose to do so. Do not be shy with liability insurance. If you have a sufficient amount of coverage you will have nothing to worry about.
Under a corporate structure it generally keeps your personal assets separate in case of being sued.
Is this business income or investment income and why does that matter(Corporate only)? Do you have 5 or more employees working for you full time? If so, that's great. your taxes will be around 18%. If not, then it is considered investment income in Ontario. Which means you will be paying 50% on your profits. (This only applies to holding property inside a corporation)
How does financing work if you are behind a Corporation buying rental properties and you want to use a big bank for financing? You will have to use Commercial lending if you decide to incorporate. In this case you (and your partners if you use them) will be tied personally to all mortgages that you take out to purchase rental properties. Your financing rates will be generally the same as if you were holding it personally through a commercial mortgage.
So, what is best case scenario?
This is up to you as the investor now that you have some insight on what is involved. Each scenario can is different.
I have decided to incorporate. The reason why is because I plan on buying larger apartment buildings (10+ units). I also have decided to buy property and build on it with the intention of both renting and selling some of the units.
Having them held in a corporate structure helps with keeping your personal finances (RRSPs, employer retirement savings, your personal residence, your savings account) separate from your business incase you get sued due to someone falling on a piece of ice. There are also the plans of having 5+ employees working full time (bookkeeper, maintenance, cleaners, etc.) this turns the investment income into business income which is taxed much less than the current 50% down to around 18%.