One of the most essential decisions in a business, in addition to determining which products or services to offer, turns on which structure to use for your business. The basic types of business organizations available in Canada are: sole proprietorship; partnership (general or limited); and incorporation.
What is the one legal document every adult needs, regardless of occupation, age or personal wealth? A Will.
Without proper agreements in place you can do serious harm to your brand and advertising campaigns. Under copyright law in Canada, when you hire an independent contractor to do work such as designing a logo, brand, pamphlet or flyer advertising your product, guess who owns the copyright? Without a written agreement in place, the independent contractor.
Did you know that BC legislation deems certain events to occur on death if not otherwise planned for? After spending a lifetime accumulating wealth and creating a business, you owe it to yourself to plan for the future.
So you receive an invoice from your supplier and it doesn’t include GST. You think to yourself “Excellent! I just received a tax break!” Wrong. You are still on the hook for that GST even when your supplier forgets to include it in your bill. So always review your invoice carefully because that supplier can come after you years later for that tax!
Canadian businesses rely on the creativity of their employees or independent contractors to generate products and services to bring to market. But who owns the copyright in the product or service after it is produced? When it comes to copyright ownership everyone gets a little possessive.
Luckily, the question of copyright ownership is usually quite clear under Canadian Copyright law. Section 13(1) of the Copyright Act (“Act”) sets out that the author of a work is the first owner of copyright.
There are several exceptions to the general rule including an exception for “work made in the course of employment.” In that case, an employer of the author is deemed to be the first owner of copyright. There is no similar exception for an independent contractor, meaning that when an independent contractor is engaged to create a product or service, copyright in the work will remain with the independent contractor.
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