Canadians Have Made Almost 200,000 CERB Repayments To The CRA (VIDEO)
Some Canadians are giving back the money they got from the government. CERB repayment is possible if you got it when you weren't supposed to and it's been done almost 200,000 times. The federal government has proposed possible penalties for people who made fraudulent claims.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) told Narcity that people have already been giving back CERB payments that they've gotten.
As of June 3, about 190,000 payments have been made through the agency's online repayment service.
You can go online and answer a couple of questions to figure out if you need to repay the CERB amounts you've gotten.
You could have to give the money back if you applied for the benefit but later realized you weren't eligible, if you started earning income earlier than expected or if you got a payment from Service Canada and the CRA for the same period.
If you did apply for the CERB twice in one period, you'll have to give back the overpayment, not the entire sum of money.
Anybody who needs to send back an amount can do so online or by mail.
Right now, the CRA can't give any information on how much money was returned to the government but those figures might be released in the future.
Justin Trudeau's Liberal government had put forward a bill that would impose penalties for deliberate fraudsters but it didn't get support from other parties.
Steps will be taken at a later time to verify that anyone who made CERB claims was actually eligible to receive the benefit according to the CRA.
There are records of who got it and during what period.
So, those will be used along with other information the agency has available to validate eligibility during the next tax filing season.
If the CRA finds that you shouldn't have actually gotten an amount, you'll be contacted to make payment arrangements.
The NDP didn't support the Liberal bill that would introduce penalties for fraudsters and make people who refused a reasonable offer of work ineligible.
Jagmeet Singh has asked Trudeau to extend the CERB past July as some people are coming to the end of their benefit periods.
With it, Canadians can get $2,000 a month for up to four months if they lost income because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fourth eligibility period ends at the beginning of July which means people who have gotten money during all four of them won't get anything after that.