Canadians With Pandemic Benefit Debt To Get One Year Of Interest Relief From Ottawa, Says Source

Canadians with pandemic benefit debt
to get one year of interest relief from Ottawa, says source

Canadians with pandemic benefit debt to get one year

of interest relief from Ottawa,

says source
Catherine Cullen 1 hour ago

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Canadians with pandemic benefit debt to get one year of interest relief from Ottawa, says source



© Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
A closed storefront boutique business pleads
for help with a sign in Toronto on Thursday, April 16, 2020.

Canadians who received pandemic benefits
will have up to a year to pay back any debt
from those benefits without interest, CBC News has confirmed.

The interest relief will apply to Canadians
who made up to $75,000 in taxable income in 2020
and received one of the federal government's
five pandemic relief benefits or employment insurance benefits.

The measure was first reported by The National Post.

Those pandemic benefits are the Canada Canada
Emergency Response Benefit (CERB),
the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) that replaced it,
the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB),
the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)
and the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB).
The interest relief will be applied automatically
to anyone who meets the criteria,
according to a government source not authorized to speak publicly.

The measure means benefit recipients won't be required
to pay any interest or outstanding income tax debt
until April 30, 2022, according to the source.
The formal announcement is expected Tuesday.
No debt clawbacks on benefits

Those who are eligible for the interest relief will also get one more break.

The Canada Revenue Agency is expected to announce
it won't claw back monthly or quarterly benefits,
such as the Canada Child Benefit or the GST/HST tax credit,
to pay down outstanding debts.

The CRA already had suspended collection activities on new debt
during the pandemic, saying it would return to collecting debts
"when it is responsible to do so."

Federal officials have refused to speculate about when that time might come.

The interest relief announcement comes as the federal government
gears up for what officials have called "a tax filing season like no other."

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Carla Qualtrough (right)
at a press conference with Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020.

In a December interview with CBC News,
Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said that
"tax time is going to be tough."


She said that while the pandemic benefits are taxable
— because they are an income replacement
— she acknowledged that "people most likely haven't put aside
that portion of every $2,000 they got for CERB for taxes."

Officials tried to address that issue when CERB
was replaced with a suite of benefits in September:
the CRB, CRCB and CRSB.
With those benefits, the CRA withheld 10 per cent
at the source to go toward taxes.

The agency still warns on its website that Canadians
may have to pay more in tax on the benefits,
depending on how much they earned in 2020.



https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/cana...-ottawa-says-source/ar-BB1dvOWq?ocid=msedgntp