The CRA recently announced that it is moving to the next phase of measures to recover COVID benefits that may have been incorrectly claimed.
Benefits include the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) and the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit (CWLB), among others.
A common theme with these benefits is that it was up to the taxpayer to determine whether they were eligible at the time of claiming. The CRA did not review eligibility before paying the amount claimed, and made it clear that eligibility may be reviewed at a later date.
If you have claimed any of these benefits in the past few years, you may have been contacted by CRA either requesting proof that you were eligible or informing you that CRA has decided that you weren’t eligible and that you need to repay the benefit received.
CRA has now announced that, from July 2024, they will start to issue legal warnings to taxpayers who have not responded to such letters, or have not been co-operative. CRA do advise that “legal measures are only taken when there is no cooperation from an individual with an ability to repay the debt”.
If you have received such letters, and you haven’t done so already, now would appear to be the time to work with the CRA to either establish your eligibility or agree to a repayment of any over-claimed amounts. More details can be found here.