Business Incorporation: Canada And Its Corporate Laws
After deciding to incorporate, another major decision needs to be addressed -- where you should incorporate. Indeed, there are a lot of venue choices for business incorporation. You have your pick among the states of the United States, U.S. territories, offshore countries and cities, and lots more other attractive venues for business incorporation. Canada, too, should come to mind.
Provincial or Federal Incorporation
If you are considering your business incorporation in Canada, you will have to decide on whether you need to set up a federal or provincial corporation. As the name suggests, provincial corporations are under the jurisdiction of the province of incorporation; Moreover, it can operate and set up its headquarters only in its particular province.
On the other hand, a federal corporation is under the auspices of Corporations Canada and can set up office and operate anywhere within the Canadian territory. There's also the benefit of protection under CBCA or the Canadian Business Corporations Act; this is the ultimate standard in corporate regulations in Canada. Being recognized as a federal corporation - and thus a CBCA corporation - indicates to everyone in the business community that your corporation has passed the stringent requirements of federal incorporation. From this springs many fringe benefits - recognition and trust from the global business community are some of them. Unfortunately, federal incorporation is not for everyone. Federal incorporation in Canada means a higher cost than provincial incorporation. Federal Incorporation Required Documents To incorporate in Canada, you need to file the duly accomplished and signed articles of incorporation. This form contains your proposed corporation name (if you want to set it yourself), the province or territory where the corporations' offices is or will be established, the types or classes of shares that the corporation will be issuing as well as the upper limit of shares that the company can issue, restrictions on share transfers as well as on the corporation's business activities, the number of directors (minimum and maximum), and other special provisions and restrictions that you want to include. Aside from the articles of incorporation, you must also fill out an sign the form that indicates the specific office address of the corporation and names the first set of directors to sit on the corporation's board. The directors' information should include the complete name and address of each director. To support your choice of name for your corporation, you must also file a NUANS report that is no more than 90 days old at the time of filing. This report will prove that your name is unique and is not a duplicate of another registered corporation's name. This is not required, however, if you are not going to specify your corporation's name yourself and are letting Corporations Canada give you a numbered name instead. After completing all the abovementioned forms, you simply need to submit them to Corporations Canada through mail, fax and even electronic mail. Naturally, you must pay the correct filing fee when you submit your forms.
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