Live data from Hacker News

Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

online.wsj.com

21–30 of 177 posts

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#21

1. Is it this? http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/menu-eng.html 2. If I were to start a new company, can I use this rebate when paying myself?

1. Yes 2. Yes, but only for the portion of your time that was SR&ED activities, which if you're the only employee couldn't conceivably be anywhere near 100%.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#22

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

As someone who keeps tabs on the poutine and labour markets back home, I can vouch for everything you said.

I don't even live in CA/NY (so my gross pay multiple isn't quite as high, but income net tax/cost of living is pretty great) and there's just no comparison. I probably make 60-80% more total comp in the USA than I would expect in a major Canadian city, and that's not even accounting for higher taxes (depending on state/province), frothy Canadian real estate valuations, and higher consumer prices almost across the board.

But Canada sure is a great place to live and I miss it dearly. I still hope to move back one day.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#23
A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries"

You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when you embark on a project that truly advances the worlds state of technology where you can really reap the benefits of SRED.

Most startups, as sad as it may be, don't truly advance technology. A lot create value, yes, but advance technology? not really. Certainly not all year. So they'll only get 75% of salaries paid for the hours they worked on advancing technology.

You'll get that back at the end of the year as one lump sum. It's awesome. However, it goes to the company and the company has to have already funded the salaries -- it wont fund salaries, it will reimburse them.

On top of that the system is so hard to navigate that you'll end up requiring a consultant to navigate it. They'll take a cut, between 10-20%, of the return.

It's not as simple as the article states, and our poutine doesn't look like that.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#24

I'm currently a beneficiary of SRED in a startup context in Canada. The first thing to note is that it doesn't solve many major problems. The lack of development talent is the biggest one; trying to get someone to move from California to Canada isn't something that's solved as simply as offering more money. And in my experience (as a recent graduate), the talent that would have studied computer science or has an inte…

Did you have any problems filing the papers with the provincial/federal govs? I'm guessing it's a lot of work.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#25
post #6

The kill or be killed attitude they mention in this article is interesting because I almost immediately noticed the difference when moving from Canada to California. It's a different animal, that's for sure.

Is the work atmosphere more relaxed in Canada? For that matter, do the East Coast/West Coast culture stereotypes hold true for Canada?

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#26
This article is light on facts (which is surprising to see in the wsj). This program is called Scientific Research and Experimental Development Tax Incentive Program. And, qualifying for a full SR&ED isn't as easy as they make it sound. To learn more, visit:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/menu-eng.html

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#27
post #20

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

2-3x factoring in cost of living in places like SF and NY? Isn't that the evening out factor, at least for new grads, for a job in say Toronto or Waterloo vs the valley?

You will still come out ahead in SF vs Toronto http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#28

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

Yeah, they immediately start parsing and backpedaling the headline: "the Canadian government is paying almost 80% of his ' salaries.". Still disapointing they don't delve into the actual program structure though.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#29

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

In theory SRED is supposed to be for R&D. You'd be surprised what can count for R&D. Doing A/B testing to solve the problem of which UI is more preferred/efficient? That can count for SRED work.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#30
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. Another 2x? 3x? 4x? Why make us guess? It's valuable info that helps inform people's decisions for the future. Thank you for the datapoints.

I can vouch for the 2x from Canada->California, I'm making more than 2x what I did in Canada (Toronto) now. I don't know about the 3x or 4x, maybe sillysaurus was making like $30k in Canada before, or maybe he's just some kind of superstar that gets paid $250k/year.

60k/yr to 180k/yr are not unbelievable salaries for a junior Canadian moving to a now more senior position at a big silicon valley tech company.
Post reply on HN