You might owe the CRA money back for the Canada Carbon Rebate — Here's how to find out

If you've been getting quarterly Canada Carbon Rebate payments, you might want to double-check your CRA account — because not everyone was supposed to get as much as they did.

The Canada Revenue Agency has confirmed that some people have been getting an extra top-up by mistake, and now they're on the hook to pay it back.

The issue centres around the carbon tax rebate's rural supplement, which gave eligible Canadians a 20% boost on their quarterly Canada Carbon Rebate payments. It was meant for people living in rural or small communities, but after an eligibility review, the CRA discovered that some city dwellers also got the bump — and that money wasn't theirs to keep.

"The CCR rural supplement was paid out to some people who were not entitled to get it," reads an alert on the CRA website. "To maintain a fair and equitable tax system, the CRA is required to recover any overpayments or payments made in error."

The mix-up comes just as Canadians in eligible provinces are getting their final carbon tax rebate payment, after Prime Minister Mark Carney scrapped the federal fuel charge in March — ending the rebate along with it. Now, the CRA is tying up loose ends and settling up what's owed before the rebate disappears for good.

The good news is that you shouldn't need to do anything to figure out if you're one of them. The CRA says that impacted Canadians should have received an official notice from them on or around April 15. But if you think you might have missed something from them, you can also check your CRA My Account.

If you're one of those affected and you've already filed your tax return, your refund may have been automatically used to pay off the balance. Otherwise, the CRA says you'll likely see the amount deducted from your final carbon rebate, which went out starting on April 22 (or six to eight weeks after you file your tax return).

It's unclear if the confusion is linked to a proposed rule change that never made it into law. Last year, the federal government announced plans to expand who qualifies for the 20% rural boost — opening it up to everyone living in towns with fewer than 30,000 people. The change would have added around 1.6 million more Canadians to the eligible list, including those living in smaller communities on the outskirts of big cities.

But that plan got stuck when Parliament was prorogued, and it didn't become official in time for the final Canada Carbon Rebate payment.

So if you live in a place like King, Ontario, or Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, you might have thought you qualified for the extra money and checked off the wrong box on your tax return by mistake.

As a Department of Finance official told Narcity in an email, "the proposed changes to the eligibility criteria have not been legislated, and therefore the proposed criteria were not used to administer the final payments issued on April 22."

Instead, the CRA stuck to its original rules, by which only folks living outside of Census Metropolitan Areas (based on the 2016 census) were officially eligible for the top-up.

A CRA spokesperson explained to Narcity that last year, the agency began reviewing CCR payments "to make sure those living outside of Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA) were receiving the full payments to which they were entitled."

That review found a few key issues: Some people got the supplement even though they lived inside a CMA, while others who did qualify didn't get it at all.

To fix the issue, the CRA says it sent out catch-up payments on April 15 to those who missed out — and notifications about repayments to those who weren't supposed to get the boost in the first place.

If you're one of the people who now owes money, the CRA says your tax refund or other government payments may be used to cover the difference. But if that's not enough, the balance might show up as an amount owing in your CRA My Account.

And if you're stressed about paying it back? The CRA says anyone facing financial hardship should call the benefits and credits line at 1-888-863-8662 to talk through their options.

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