Insights
A great way to increase wealth is to cut back on the taxes you pay. In Canada, tax is a huge expense for dentists. To get ahead, a strategy to reduce your tax burden is essential.
Contrary to popular belief, dental hygienists can be independent contractors working for a dentist—they do not have to be employees. It all depends on their contracts with their employer. If your contract says that you are an independent contractor, then you are technically self-employed. As a result, you have to file your business taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
As a dentist, you specialize in taking care of your dental clients’ oral health – you aren’t an accountant or tax specialist. Most dentists are unaware of all of the tax credits they are eligible for, and don’t have a financial plan to maximize their tax return. To help you avoid some pitfalls, below are 5 common tax mistakes dentists make.
As a dentist, you can have different experiences in dealing with dental insurance. If your office helps coordinate the insurance plans’ coverage for customers, which many dentist offices do, to encourage customers’ loyalty, you may be dealing with multiple insurance providers in that way, as a provider of dental services. You may also have an alternative experience – that of a covered recipient.
Dental practice owners often struggle with the business management aspect of their business when they set up their own dental practice. As dental professionals, their strengths lie in their education and experience in providing dental care, not business management.
Marketing helps you reach potential patients, plus maintain a good, ongoing relationship with current patients. However, knowing how and where to spend your marketing budget and efforts can be difficult. Digital marketing is a critical aspect of any strategy since most people search online for medical professionals, but other methods are effective as well. An effective strategy overall is essential to achieve the best results.
There are several tax planning strategies that are recommended to reduce the amount of taxes you may have to pay. Generally, tax planning involves finding potential tax deductions or tax credits. Tax deductions reduce taxable income, while credits reduce what taxes you pay on your taxable income.
If you are looking to start your own dental practice, you might be considering opening it up in a new community where there are no existing practices. This may mean you will need to build a new dental clinic and office and are curious about the various considerations and factors that affect what you might expect to pay, beyond the obvious construction costs.
When you run a dental practice, it is essential to keep your financials in order. If you don’t know what money is coming in or out, or what tax obligations or other financial obligations you have, you cannot make educated financial decisions and you can run into financial difficulties, despite having a busy practice that could otherwise be successful. Patients and family always come first.
As a dental practice owner, you have much to worry about besides just taking care of teeth. You need to ensure that your practice is attracting new patients, making money, paying its accounts payable, and earning a certain amount to cover its expenses and payroll. It is a lot to think about.
Are you considering a career as a dentist and wondering how much does a dentist make in Canada?
The Canadian Dental Association describes dentistry as an “artistic as well as scientific profession. Dentists must have an artist’s aesthetic sense, an eye for detail and manual dexterity to perform precise procedures… Dentists must also be good communicators”. This range of aptitudes, plus high educational requirements, is reflected in salaries.
Whether you are just leaving dental school or have worked in an existing practice for years, you are considering starting a practice. Starting a dental practice can be extremely rewarding, but it can be costly.
Before the computer, administrative professionals did all administrative and financial tasks in dental offices. Staff filled outpatient charts by hand, managed patient schedules in appointment logs and calendars, and processed payments through cheques and money orders.
The success of every dental practice rests on its patient base. You need patients coming in the door to sell your services because, without new dental patients, you do not have any teeth to care for!
The federal government is looking to start a new national dental care program that would provide families with a household income of less than $90,000 with dental care assistance. There will be no co-payment requirements for those with a household income of less than $70,000. The program is intended to start this year (2022) for children under the age of 12 as the first eligible group. Unfortunately, few details were actually provided about this new program, leaving many families with unanswered questions. Not only that, but these unanswered questions are leaving those in the dental industry unable to determine how it will impact their business.
