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Any Canadian Self-Employed Members? Tax Help?

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  • Any Canadian Self-Employed Members? Tax Help?

    Alrighty, so, I was a contracted artist at a game studio in my city, but they had some financial problems so I was laid off/they let my contract expire a couple of months ago

    I need to file my taxes (I live in British Columbia, Canada) but this was my first job since graduating, so it's my first time filing taxes for income I earned through self employment (oh, how I wish I had been an employee and I just got a nice, simple, T4)

    Anyhoo. To my understanding, I need to file a T2125?

    But the form confuses me... like, do I file for business income or professional income?

    The form seems to be set up to be more retail business friendly... so trying to understand how to fill it out is a bit frustrating.

    Can anyone help?

  • #2
    I was categorized as self-employed (was a surprise to me) after a year or so of freelance editing at a newspaper ... but I had The Big Green Tax Preparation Machine do my taxes. They said I would have to file that part of my income as a business tax (I'm not happy with the results but that's neither here nor there).

    However, my advice would be to see if there are any low-cost or free tax clinics near you, where somebody can look at your specific situation and give advice based on that.

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    • #3
      I'm not aware of any free ones, but there's a tax place near me, and I booked an appointment there today I've been to a different branch of this tax place, and they were pretty nice, I just hope that I have good enough records of my income.

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      • #4
        Good luck! Here's wishing you a nice refund ...

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        • #5
          Yeah, don't fark with it, take it to some place that does this professionally. My folks have been running their own business for years, but they don;t fark around with the tax side of it. They take it straight to H&R Block.

          Also, you're an unemployed game artist in BC you say... ;p

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          • #6
            Just got back form H&R block. It wasn't too bad, I'm still not sure what the difference between "Business" and "Professional" is, I asked the lady there and she couldn't tell me, she seemed just as confused as I was :\ She filed it under "Business", so, oh well.

            Also: Yarr, unemployed game artist, I hope I get a new contract with a studio soon, or better yet get hired as an employee :P

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            • #7
              Designer at a little start up myself. We're stubbornly indie though so the day job stays at least until we hit Kickstarter. Still there's always something going on for art production so you're lucky there. Especially in this city. Try getting hired on permanently as a designer >.> Hell, if it wasn't for how much the industry has changed in the last 5 years with digital distribution and a resurgence in retro gaming we'd still be fubar as an indie studio.

              What area do you work in? Concept art is a hit or miss, but if you can model / texture anything there's always work somewhere.

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              • #8
                I think I can take a wild guess at which city you're in :P Good luck with your start up!

                I'm still fairly new, just recently graduated, but I can use Maya. Trouble is, I only have a student version of Maya, so I can't sell anything I make with it :\ I'd really like to buy a proper license for it, then maybe I could at least sell stuff on the Unity Asset Store.

                Right now I'm just working with a friend on a project of his, and I'll be helping some of my classmates if their Kickstarter goes well, so there's that at least

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                • #9
                  Not that hard to guess. Heck I pass Relic on my way to work. <cough>

                  Luckily I don't have much to worry about with us. We have serious chops as it were and can afford at least initial assets to put together a playable demo. But we've worked a lot of years behind the scenes to get to this point.

                  Ouch, yeah. 3D software is pricey. Especially something like Maya. I use to do 3D work around the Hl2 mod community era. My lone copy of Lightwave was my pride and joy. Maybe try your luck on Blender in the mean time. Least its freeware and free license. If nothing else you can bolster your portfolio.

                  Having gone the idealist start up right out of school route myself years ago, my only advice is A) Make sure your programmers really know what they're doing and B) If they do, don't let them leave. ;p

                  Otherwise you'll end up with a guy that puts the whole project back 6 months after he spends 2 months incompetently undoing everything your previous lead programmer did <cough>

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