Today I was looking into administrative matters for Minireference Co. and I want to collect some notes here which might be helpful to other entrepreneurs starting their ventures in Quebec.

The first thing to do is to register (en) with Revenu Quebec and obtain you “tax numbers”. Your tax numbers allow other businesses to track the taxes they pay to you. You can use this form to verify a QST number for any company. You can find more info about here and here.

Registering is important because all the GST and QST taxes you will pay as a company are refundable. The GST is refunded as input tax credits (ITCs), the QST as input tax refunds (ITRs).  Be sure to register BEFORE you incur any major expenses because to be entitled to ITCs or ITRs, you must have been a registrant during the reporting period in respect of which you paid the taxes. At the end of the year, you will be able to get back the tax paid on pretty much all your operating expenses and even home office expenses.

The second thing you have to do is collect GST and QST on all the sales you do.  In the case of Minireference Co., I am dealing in  books, more specifically printed books which are zero rated articles in Quebec so I only have to collect GST.

There is a nice guide to all of this, which I have not read yet but which I am going to print. The guide doesn’t include the changes  which take effect Jan 1st (new way to calculate QST:  now calculated at 9.975% on the selling price not including GST). You can get in touch with RQ by phone. The waiting time was very reasonable.