Am I self employed or not?

[izzy1000]

Hi there,
I hope someone can help me with this. I sent in my application on July 13th and am eagerly awaiting my AOR.
I originally started my engineering career as a "contractor" working for an agency by the name of Eagle Engineering, this agency provided engineering support to a company called Marshall Aerospace Cambridge in England. After a year or so I got "seconded" to Abbotsford, BC to work for Marshall Aerospace Canada. It was supposed to be a short term thing but I ended up staying till now(almost 2.5 years). When I started looking into applying for CEC I found out that Eagle engineering did not pay any taxes to canada and hence I did not pay canadian taxes for the first 2 years working here(I paid UK taxes by mistake). Anyway I have now paid back all the tax owed to CRA and am awaiting the delivery of some T1 slips.
I was never a "contractor" per say as I was a permanent employee of Eagle engineering and a temporary employee of Marshall Aerospace Canada.
The reason I am writing for advice is because I read a thread about a guy who worked as a contractor in BC and many people told him he is not eligible for CEC, so as you can imagine I started getting worried :-[
I have worked full time with MAC whereby they determined my activities and provided me with the tools and office to do said work, in my opinion that qualifies me as a tempoarary worker, not a contractor, but I cant help but worry about how CIC Buffalo will interpret my situation. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks



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[USNick]

My question would be: what kind of work permit do you have while you're working in Canada? Does it name an employer; if so, who is it -- the Canadian company, or the parent company?

Just because you're a contractor doesn't necessarily disqualify you. In my situation, all members of my profession are independent contractors as far as taxes are concerned. However, my work permit clearly names my Canadian company as my "employer," so even though they don't consider me an employee because of Revenue Canada's guidelines, CIC did (thankfully). As I understand it, "self-employed" people (or at least some of them) have a special work permit for self-employment, and so it came down to the fact that I had a definite employer named on my work permit for CIC to be able to consider me not self-employed.

 

[izzy1000]

Hi USNick

My work permit says Marshall Aerospace Canada so I think I'm safe. Thanks very much for the reply.
Did you ever receive any T4 slips from the canadian company? I cant because I was technically employed by Marshall Aerospace Cambridge. So the plan is to send in my T1 slips once they arrive along with a copy of all my tax returns. Hopefully that should do it.

 

[Yus]

Hi USNick,

I am new to this forum. Can you please let know what doc you submitted for your work permit that to specify your company as your employer? I am currently incoporated and would like to renew my work permit. If you can give me more details on what i required would be very appreciated.

Thanks for your help.

Yus