What Does an Accountant
Cost in London, Ontario?
The Short Answer
Nobody Publishes This.
So Here It Is.
Ask what a tax return costs and you'll usually get "it depends." It does depend — but not so much that nobody can give you a number. This page has the ranges you'll actually be quoted around London, what moves the price up, and what we charge, in figures rather than a promise to discuss it later.
What You'll Be Quoted
Published industry figures for Canada put a straightforward personal return — T4 income, RRSP contributions, the usual credits — at roughly $200 to $400. Add self-employment, a rental property, or foreign income and the range moves to about $400 to $900. Returns carrying trust income, foreign property reporting, or several income streams at once run past $1,200.
Where a firm bills by the hour instead, bookkeepers generally run $30 to $90 an hour, and accountants and CPA firms $150 to $400 or more.
Two things worth holding on to. London is not Toronto — rates here sit below what the same work is quoted at in Toronto or Ottawa, so a London quote at the top of a national range deserves a question. And every figure above is a range rather than a price, which is the actual problem. The rest of this page is about closing that gap.
Three Kinds of Provider, Three Price Structures
Most of the spread in those ranges isn't complexity. It's who you walked in to see. There are broadly three options in a city this size, and they don't price the same way.
Franchise storefronts advertise a low headline price and build the real number up per slip and per form. For a single T4 and nothing else, they are genuinely cheap. The price climbs quickly once anything is added, preparers are hired and trained for the season, and the person who did last year's return is often not there for this year's.
Independent tax preparation practices — which is what we are — quote a fixed fee for the whole return, with one person on your file from intake to filing. The headline price is usually higher than a storefront's and the final invoice is usually lower, because the add-ons are in the quote instead of arriving at the end.
Licensed public accounting firms bill hourly at the top of the range. That's where you go for an audit, a review engagement, or a genuinely complex corporate structure. If you need one, nothing else will do. Most personal filers and a good number of small businesses are paying for capability their situation never calls on.
What Actually Moves the Number
Not hours. Schedules. A return's price tracks how many separate reporting obligations it carries, and each of these is a distinct piece of work with its own form, its own records, and its own way of going wrong:
A rental property means a T776, one per property. Self-employment means a T2125. Selling property or investments during the year brings in capital dispositions. Foreign property over $100,000 triggers a T1135. Crypto is priced on transaction volume, because reconciling 40 trades and reconciling 4,000 are not the same job. Employment expenses need a signed T2200 from your employer before a T777 can be filed at all. And unfiled prior years are each a separate return, at that year's rules.
This is why "it depends" isn't entirely a dodge — but it's also why anyone who has seen your slips can give you a firm number in a few minutes. If a quote stays vague after that conversation, the vagueness is a choice.
Why We Don't Bill by the Hour
Hourly billing has one honest advantage: it matches what the work took. Everything else about it works against you. You can't budget for it, you find out what it cost after you've committed, and it quietly prices your questions — a firm that bills in six-minute increments has taught you not to pick up the phone in September.
We quote the whole return before any work starts. If your situation turns out to be more than what you described, we come back and say so before doing it, not afterwards on an invoice. The number of times that conversation happens is small; the number of times it happens after the work should be zero.
What We Charge
Our own published rates start at $149 for a return with employment and benefit income, $249 once slip-reported investment income is in the mix, and $399 for a complex return, which includes one of rental, self-employment, or a property disposition.
Additional schedules are priced on the same published list: a rental property is $150, self-employment is $200, foreign income or property on a T1135 is $150, and employment expenses on a T2200 are $125. Crypto is added by volume. A spouse's return is $50 off its tier, and military members, veterans, nurses, and first responders take 15% off under our service appreciation rate. Prior-year returns are priced per year. Everything above is before 13% HST.
The fee calculator puts your own combination together and shows the total with HST included, in about a minute, without giving us your email first. The full breakdown by service is on the pricing page.
One Thing Worth Being Straight About
Greywood Advisory is a tax preparation practice, not a licensed public accounting firm. We prepare and file personal, corporate, and trust returns, we keep books and run payroll, and as an Authorized CRA EFILE Provider we deal with CRA on your behalf when a letter arrives. We do not perform audits or assurance engagements — those require a public accounting licence in Ontario, and if your situation calls for one, you need a licensed firm and we'll tell you so.
For personal returns and most owner-managed small business filing, it isn't a distinction that changes what you need. It's worth knowing which one you're buying, though, and worth being told without having to ask.
Before You Hire Anyone
Four Questions Worth Asking
Is that the whole return, or the base?
The single most useful question you can ask, and the one that separates a $99 headline from a $340 invoice. Get the answer before you hand over a single slip.
Who prepares it, and are they here in July?
Returns get reviewed months after filing. Ask whether the person preparing yours is the person who'll answer the phone when CRA writes in the autumn.
Are they an Authorized CRA EFILE Provider?
It's a CRA screening and it's checkable. It doesn't make someone good, but its absence in a paid preparer is a fair thing to wonder about.
What happens when CRA writes?
Reviews are routine and mostly a paperwork exercise. Find out now whether responding is included, billed, or your own problem. Ours is covered in the FAQ.