Last updated on April 25th, 2021 at 08:58 pm
I was thirteen years old when my Dad sat me down at the kitchen table and had me do my taxes for the first time. It’s not like I was rolling in cash—my only 1996 income was from a day at Streetsville’s Bread & Honey Festival, sweltering inside a Sam the Bee costume. But I studied the tax booklet inside and out—my Dad wanted me to approach it just like I would for a full-time job.
More than twenty years later, I’ve switched to digital systems that automate and optimise the things once done with multiple booklets and an accounting calculator, but that doesn’t necessarily make things simpler. In fact, now that I’ve built an entire second career from creating content for Casey Palmer, Canadian Dad, doing my taxes only grew more complicated, now requiring the expertise of additional people to do it all correctly.
But new times (and tax laws) call for new solutions, and that’s precisely what TurboTax offers with TurboTax Self-Employed! It makes tax filing simpler and more straightforward than you’ve ever seen before!

How TurboTax Self-Employed Makes Small Business Taxes a Little Less… Stressful.
Now let’s be real: it can be daunting to look at a small business tax return for the first time—especially if you’ve never filed a personal tax return on your own before—but TurboTax Self-Employed is here to ease you into making the most of your efforts as a businessperson.
It all starts with some fundamental questions, so TurboTax Self-Employed understands what your business is all about. Whether you’re a contractor, freelancer or even just making a bit off your side hustle, there are some common forms to fill for the Canada Revenue Agency, declaring your self-employed income and expenses.
And it’s a good thing that TurboTax simplifies things, too. They recently surveyed self-employed Canadians and found that 60% of them feel uncertain about maximising their tax returns with the legislative changes that come each year.
Once TurboTax Self-Employed has walked you through its questionnaire step-by-step, it continues helping by prompting for pertinent deductions and expenses to make for an accurate return and optimise the figures so you can get as much back as possible!
But wait—there’s more.
TurboTax knows that there’re software options out there that’ll take your numbers and spit a report out, but do they make you a better businessperson? Knowing where the numbers go is good, but understanding why they go there is so much better.
A Different TurboTax for Two Different Levels of Taxation Comfort
So for the self-employed Canadians who want a little more involvement in their returns, TurboTax offers two additional products:
- TurboTax Live Assist and Review, providing live on-demand access to tax and product advice as users complete their returns, including a full review of the completed return;
- and TurboTax Live Full Service for the self-employed Canadians who don’t have the time to fill in every blank, but would like a seasoned professional to put it all together
On average, TurboTax experts bring 17 years of experience to the table. As a TurboTax Self-Employed customer, you can access them through TurboTax Smartlook™—one-way technology that gives your support experience a personal feel as your expert helps you get those numbers right.
A QuickBooks Self-Employed mobile app that makes expense, mileage, invoice and HST tracking effortless. An AnswerXchange forum where users can support one another. With a bevvy of options, it’s not hard to find the TurboTax solution that’s right for you.
TurboTax Self-Employed—The Tax Solution You’ve Been Looking For!
We live in a world where our “normal’s” rapidly changing. Where fewer kids have paper routes and more build their fortunes on YouTube. We put less blind faith into post-secondary education, assuming it’ll make everything work out, realising the many other things we can learn to lead us to success. TurboTax Self-Employed has plenty within to help you no matter where you are in your business journey—maybe it’ll become part of your new normal!
Good luck this tax season, and until the next, I remain,
Disclaimer:
I wrote this sponsored conversation on behalf of TurboTax. The opinions and text are all mine.