The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) says 20 employees have been terminated after an internal review found they claimed COVID-19 benefits while still working at the tax authority.
The CRA said in a late Friday statement that more workers could be fired as it investigates about 600 employees who may have “inappropriately” received the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) despite not losing their job during the pandemic.
Those employees represent less than 1 per cent of the CRA’s workforce, the agency noted.
The CRA was responsible for administering the $2,000-per-month CERB when it was in effect between March and September 2020.
In February, the CRA confirmed to the House of Commons standing committee for public accounts that it had identified a small number of employees who had claimed COVID-19 benefits despite their employment status.
The CRA said Friday that earlier revelation — which was also included in an auditor general’s report on COVID-19 benefits — sparked “a broader internal review process to identify any CRA employees who inappropriately received the CERB while employed with the CRA.”
That review has led to 20 employees being terminated as of Friday, CRA spokesperson Sylvie Branch said in a statement.
“It is important to note that this number is likely to increase as the reviews are completed,” she added.
The statement did not say how much money had been falsely claimed through the benefit program by the individuals terminated or under investigation. The CRA told MPs in February that the money would be recollected.
The CRA noted that being employed by the agency at the time the CERB was in effect “does not necessarily mean an individual was ineligible for the CERB,” and is reviewing each file on a case-by-case basis.
Employees with temporary or student contracts, for example, would have been eligible to receive the benefit, the agency said.
To qualify for the CERB, applicants had to have lost their primary job or source of income as a result of the pandemic. If they were still employed, their monthly income had to have dipped below $1,000 at the time they filed their application to be eligible.
Friday’s statement comes after another tax season that saw the CRA clawback money from Canadians in order to collect on overpayments of COVID-19 benefits.
The CRA announced in April it was resuming efforts to recover the money through a process it calls “offsetting,” which means that it automatically uses money from tax refunds and some benefits to settle a person’s debt with the government.
More than a million notices were sent to individuals with an amount owing from overpayments from COVID-related benefits during the spring.
The auditor general’s office reported in December that the federal government gave $4.9 billion worth of pandemic benefits to ineligible recipients, including subsidies for wages.
The audit found that efforts to recover overpayments have been limited, with the CRA collecting $2.3 billion through voluntary repayments.
The CRA first started clawing back tax refunds last October to collect on the remaining debt.
The CRA said in May that close to $1.4 billion in COVID benefits have since been repaid, including about $237 million from about 775,000 people through the use of offsetting.
— with files by the Canadian Press
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