The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) says it will spend roughly $538 million tracking down ineligible claimants of pandemic relief payments.
The CRA has already spent $387.6 million on staff time and resources in an attempt to recover incorrect payments from the Canada Emergency Response Benefits (CERB) program, documents tabled in the House of Commons show.
The CERB program offered $2,000 per month, or $500 per week, to those whose working income was hindered due to COVID-19. Another $150 million has been budgeted for the recovery effort over the next two years, according to the documents that were first reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The numbers were submitted in response to an inquiry by NDP MP Bonita Zarillo.
As of Sept. 29, the CRA knew of about $3.56 billion worth of incorrect payments from the CERB program as well as $2.3 billion in ineligible payments made from the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) program, the documents show.
Canadians who were employed or self-employed and not able to claim employment insurance could receive some support through the CRB program.
Auditors for the CRA were looking to recover incorrect payments from the programs worth as much as $28,000 and as little as 10 cents, the documents said.
Access to information records obtained by Blacklock’s showed that $635.9 million in benefit payments were sent to high school students, including 40,630 claims by Grade 9 students. Workers inside the CRA who received pandemic support payments are also being investigated.
A briefing note obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter showed that more than 1.1 million Canadians had fully repaid their CERB debts, totalling in excess of $2.1 billion.
Employer Wage Subsidy Program Payouts
CRA has also cracked down on employers who were involved in the wage subsidy program that started during the pandemic.CRA’s Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program offered subsidies of up to 75 percent of staff wages to help businesses retain workers during the pandemic.
The program paid out approximately $100 billion in subsidies to businesses; however, auditor general Karen Hogan previously warned that thousands of companies that received the money may not have been entitled to the assistance.
CRA said by the end of September, it had applied $15 million in penalties in relation to these files.
The audit of the CEWS program is expected to run into 2025.