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App designers hope to help Canada's arts sector gig workers better understand taxes and finances

Author Sharlene Gandhi
Of the nearly 203,000 professional artists in Canada, two-thirds report being self-employed.

Why It Matters

The majority of workers in the arts are self-employed and likely have incomes that fluctuate month to month. The designers of the new app Sai hope to help artists navigate Canada’s weird and wonderful tax system more easily.

Former theatre producer Owais Lightwala recalls a budgeting workshop he ran for emerging artists, teaching them about harmonized sales tax (HST). At one point in the seminar, someone started crying. “I stopped the workshop and asked them what was wrong,” Lightwala said.

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