# Charanek Taxes & Accounting

> Independent tax preparation and full-cycle bookkeeping for Calgary individuals and small businesses.

Charanek Taxes & Accounting is a tax and bookkeeping practice in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, founded in 2024 by Mo Charanek (Founder and principal).
Qualifications: Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting; QuickBooks Online Certified, Intuit.
The practice is independent rather than a CPA firm. Audits, reviews and compilation engagements have to be issued by a registered CPA, and if your bank or a shareholder needs one, you will leave the conversation with names of CPAs who do that work. Everything else is what the practice does all year: personal returns, self-employment and rental income, small-business filings, and the bookkeeping underneath them.
Service area: Calgary and area, and remote across Alberta.
Contact: mo@charanek.ca.

Published fees, flat and agreed before work starts:

- Personal return (T1) — $150
- Personal return with rental or investment income — $275
- Self-employed return (T1 with business schedule) — $350
- GST return, standalone — $125
- Bookkeeping catch-up — $65 / hour
- QuickBooks Online setup — $350
- CRA correspondence — $95 / hour

## Services

- [Personal tax returns (T1)](https://www.charanek.ca/services/personal-tax): Your T1 prepared and filed properly — for the years where boxed software stops being enough and a wrong answer costs real money.
- [Self-employed and small-business tax](https://www.charanek.ca/services/self-employed-tax): For sole proprietors and side businesses — the business schedule done properly, with the expense questions answered before you file.
- [Bookkeeping](https://www.charanek.ca/services/bookkeeping): Full-cycle bookkeeping in QuickBooks Online — reconciled monthly, or brought back into order if it has slipped.

## Pricing

- [Fees](https://www.charanek.ca/pricing): The full fee schedule, with what each one covers

## Insights

- [The two tax dates that matter, and the one people get wrong](https://www.charanek.ca/blog/the-two-tax-dates-that-matter): Most people know April 30. Fewer know that being self-employed moves your filing date but not your payment date, which is where the interest comes from.
- [Should you incorporate? The honest answer is usually 'not yet'](https://www.charanek.ca/blog/should-you-incorporate-usually-not-yet): Incorporation gets recommended far earlier than it should. Here is the arithmetic that actually decides it, and the costs nobody mentions up front.
- [The $30,000 GST threshold catches people mid-year](https://www.charanek.ca/blog/the-30000-gst-threshold-catches-people-mid-year): It is not an annual test you check each January. It is a rolling one, and how fast the obligation lands depends on which way you crossed it.
- [A CRA letter arrived. What to do in the first week](https://www.charanek.ca/blog/a-cra-letter-arrived-what-to-do-first): Most CRA correspondence is a routine review, not an audit. How you answer the first letter shapes everything that follows, so it is worth answering carefully.
- [Two years behind on the books: how catch-up actually works](https://www.charanek.ca/blog/two-years-behind-on-the-books): Falling behind is common and recoverable. What it costs depends almost entirely on how the records were kept while nobody was looking.

## The practice

- [About](https://www.charanek.ca/about): Mo Charanek, background and qualifications
- [Contact](https://www.charanek.ca/contact): Email, service area and how an engagement starts
- [All services](https://www.charanek.ca/services)
- [Full text of this site](https://www.charanek.ca/llms-full.txt): Every page above, expanded inline

## Optional

- [Privacy Policy](https://www.charanek.ca/privacy)
- [Terms of Service](https://www.charanek.ca/terms)