But first you must meet the "reasonable expectation of profit" test. The CCRA is only willing to share your losses if there is a reasonable expectation that there will be future profits to share as well. If not, your losses will be disallowed as simple personal losses.

This means that you cannot deduct losses arising from hobbies or similar activities if you do not ultimately expect them to be profitable. It also means that you cannot deduct losses if the size or scope of your business is such that your expectation of profit is simply not reasonable.

Because businesses are rarely profitable immediately, start-up losses are usually routinely allowed. However, if your business does not show a profit in a reasonable length of time, those losses may eventually be disallowed. Remember that the CCRA can go back as far as three years (sometimes six years if a loss carryback claim has previously been filed) to disallow any losses previously claimed. If your losses were significant, the back taxes and interest can be substantial.

Since you cannot always know in advance whether your business will succeed or not, it is important to protect yourself in case you are not able to get your business "into the black" within a reasonable time. You can avoid having your bona-fide business losses disallowed by taking certain precautions, the most valuable of which is the five-year business plan. So take the time, put in some effort and be fair to yourself!

For example, let's say you love photography and have spent a lot of money on equipment. Your work is very good and occasionally you have sold some pictures. It occurs to you that, with a little effort, you could turn your hobby into a business. After all, it would be nice to write off all that equipment, wouldn't it? Before you jump in, however, take some time to do your homework.

First of all, prepare a five-year business plan, showing projected income and expenses over that period. Estimate how much revenue you can realistically bring in each year. Then list all the expenses required to generate that income. Be sure to include all expenses that are deductible for tax purposes, including the cost of any personal items you intend to use in the business (for capital items, include depreciation only). Your business plan should also indicate who your intended customers are and how you intend to reach them. It should explain how and where you will obtain the necessary financing, what management skills and expertise you will contribute to the business, and what you have to hire from others.

Now study your business plan. Do you have what it takes to run a small business? What are the projected profit/loss figures for the first five years? If your business plan indicates serious deficiencies, or projects persistent losses, you should either revamp your plan, or else continue your photography simply as a hobby, not a business. In other words, until you have a workable business plan, you should consider the losses to be the personal cost associated with a hobby and forget about trying to write them off on your tax return.

However, if your plan is sound, and the projected profit/loss statement shows an upward trend resulting in profitability after a reasonable length of time, you probably have a viable business, even if there are losses in the first few years. If you decide to proceed, use the business plan as your blueprint for building your business. Remember to save one copy of it for your files: it may come in handy if the CCRA decides to look more closely at your business sometime down the road.

At the end of each year, compare your actual income and expenses to the projections in your business plan. If your losses were larger than you had projected, figure out why. Were your expenses higher because your business plan overlooked some regular, recurring expenses, or were there start-up costs you didn't account for? Was your revenue lower than expected because you over-estimated the market or didn't advertise enough? It is important to determine the cause of the discrepancy, and whether it is a one-time thing, or an on-going problem. Then make the necessary corrections and revise your business plan accordingly.

To illustrate the importance of the business plan, let's assume you started your photography business without one. Let's further assume that things did not go well at first, and you showed consistent losses of $3,000 in each of the first three years. You still think that it is a good business which will eventually make money, but the CCRA, looking at your track record, decides to disallow your losses for all three years - all on the basis that you had no "reasonable expectation of profit." Without a business plan, it is difficult to challenge that judgement. As a result, you could end up out of pocket, not just for the original $9,000 loss, but for the back taxes and interest on that amount of money as well!

How would a business plan help you? First of all, it would give you an objective, concrete basis for judging whether your business really is likely to make a profit. After all, maybe the CCRA is right; maybe you were just engaged in "wishful thinking." A business plan would have indicated this to you much sooner and allowed you to cut your losses before they became too large.

On the other hand, maybe the CCRA is wrong. Maybe your expectation of profit is entirely realistic. Maybe the losses were due to unusual circumstances, which have since been rectified, or were a necessary part of getting started in a cut-throat business. A sound business plan, adjusted yearly, will help you prove your case. It will enable you to counter the CCRA's perfect "hindsight" with facts and figures instead of unsubstantiated hopes and dreams.