Taxpayers are still fighting the CRA over pandemic benefits — and losing
Taxpayers show up in federal court almost every week hoping to hang on to their COVID-19 benefits after being found ineligible by the Canada Revenue Agency, but they are usually unsuccessful.
In almost all cases, the taxpayer simply doesn’t meet the qualification criteria or their evidence strains credulity. Before delving into the details of a recent case, here’s a quick refresher of the rules.
The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and its replacement, the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), were the two main COVID-19 benefits available to individuals. The CERB was offered for any four-week period between March 15, 2020, and Oct. 3, 2020. To be eligible, an applicant had to demonstrate they had income of at least $5,000 from (self-)employment income in 2019 or in the 12 months preceding their first application.
The CERB was replaced by the CRB, which became available for any two-week period between Sept. 27, 2020, and Oct. 23, 2021, for eligible employees and self-employed workers who suffered a loss of income due to the pandemic.
CRB’s eligibility criteria were similar to CERB in that they required, among other things, that the individual had earned at least $5,000 in (self-)employment income in 2019, 2020 or during the 12 months preceding the date of their application.
The CERB and CRB benefits are most commonly selected for review by the CRA when it’s unclear if the taxpayer earned at least $5,000 of income in a prior qualifying period.
The most common types of qualifying income are employment or self-employment (that is, business) income, but the CRA has accepted that non-eligible dividends (generally those paid out of corporate income taxed at the small business rate) can count towards the minimum $5,000 in
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