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INC General Blog

Moving to Mobile-Friendly

On April 21st, Google began an overhaul of its mobile search algorithm, as announced earlier this year. In order to improve accessibility to mobile users, we are in the midst of making some changes to our website to make it more mobile-friendly. We ask for your patience as we implement these changes. If you find you are having difficulty accessing certain information on our website during this process, please contact us for assistance. 

Register of individuals with significant control - Canadian federal corporations

Canada at the federal level is taking steps, in common with other mostly European jurisdictions, to force Canadian federal corporations to keep personal information about "individuals with significant control" (ISC) as part of the registers (lists) that each corporation must maintain. The requirement starts in June 2019, and applies, with few exceptions, to every existing Canadian federal corporation and every newly formed Canadian federal corporation.

An ISC is generally defined as someone who:

More on Mobile-Friendly

Mobile-Friendly Passed Page Test

Google has a mobile-friendly page test and a slightly different PageSpeed Insights test. We're pleased to report that, with a surprisingly small number of adjustments, the website now passes the mobile-friendly test and scores a 97 in mobile user experience from PageSpeed Insights.

SSL Certificate for Incorporate.ca

SSL is Here

It was a full week here on the website front.

Observant users will have noticed, from Wednesday or so, that we now have a secure, encrypted "https" connection, with the little lock icon, in most browsers. You can click on the lock and the browser will display the certificate information, among other things.

Canadian Federal Budget 2013 - Some Good and Bad for Business Owners

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced Canada's 2013 budget on March 21, 2013. In the big picture, the budget's public focus was on a revised program for skills and job training -- a topic certainly relevant for businesses of all sizes. And the general-level impression of that program is that businesses will be expected to kick in one-third of the training cost, up to $5,000, for each worker taking advantage of that program.

Tax-saving strategies for business owners at year end

Tim Cestnick writes a weekly column on taxes in the Globe and Mail. He's worth paying attention to. But be sure to consult your own professional advisers about implementing any particular strategy. Tim's November 15, 2012 column, "For business owners, six tax-saving strategies for the year-end checklist" is timely and well worth considering.

Is Use on the Internet Sufficient for Trademark Registration

 

It bears repeating. In Trademarkland in Canada, your right to obtain registration of your mark mostly depends on whether you have “used” the mark in the ordinary course of business. And your ability to keep the mark alive after obtaining registration also requires continued “use” of the mark, in that special Trademarkland sense of the word “use”.

All trademark owners need clearly to understand what behaviour is required in order to meet the level and kind of “use” required under the rules for trademark registration.

Use for Goods

April Fool's 2013: get ready for BC Provincial Sales Tax

The BC public is getting what it wanted—for better or worse.

Effective April 1, 2013, the PST will come back into force, replacing the BC provincial portion of the HST.

The restaurants are cheering. For other business owners, not so much, because the HST is a far better tax to deal with. Only one registration. Only one payment to remit. Only one return to file. Except in complex situations, a mostly uniform set of goods and services on which the tax applies. The ability to claim input tax credits on purchases.

All of that is out the window on the provincial side.

It Worked!

 

Our fingernails are a little more ragged than yesterday, but everything is up, working and accessible.

DNS changes took about an hour to propagate, with TTL (time to live) cranked down to minimum values. This blog needed a little clean-up to make it work again, and now we’re back.

Incorporate.ca and IncTrademarks.com – website changes pending

 

We’ve been busy the last few months re-writing our main website, at www.incorporate.ca. We’re getting ready to move it into production, which means changing the hosting company we use. In the computer world, that also means updating the DNS settings for that website and for this website. (DNS settings allow humans to find websites on the internet.)

Incorporating can improve your business image.