Employers make the Canada Revenue Agency mistakes

The Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) presented a spreadsheet of Canada Emergency Wage Support (CUSS) that was riddled with errors and cut some business subsidies in half.

To qualify for SSUC – which has so far helped nearly 400,000 companies with grants totaling $ 59 billion – employers must fill out “spreadsheets”: Excel spreadsheets that ARC has been offering on its website since March 15th.

However, the spreadsheet available to companies for payment periods from July 5 to August 29 contained several major errors until last Friday, nine days before the deadline for grant applications.

One of them appeared in the document nearly four months ago. The last “was only present from November 23 to November 30, but it was likely a little earlier,” the CRA admitted in an email sent to Task.

The CRA said the November release “was limited to one field in the spreadsheet, which appeared as“ weekly ”rather than“ bi-monthly. ”For employees without an arm [les propriétaires ou les membres de leur famille, par exemple]The problem may have caused a 50% decrease. [des sommes calculées]. […] For employees working on a level playing field, the problem could have resulted in a 25% reduction, “the federal agency details.

In other words, employers who filled out their applications this week in November may have seen their benefits cut in half or a quarter because it was calculated over one week, not two weeks.

Another error in the worksheet

Thomas Reed, owner of Mini-Braves Daycare in Quebec City, noticed something was wrong in his worksheet from July 5 to August 29 when he tried to fill it out last October. He says he reported the issue to the Revenue Agency on November 20. “The employee on the phone gave it an English version test and said it was correct [contrairement à la version française] “, Says Task. The next Monday they told me it had been corrected. “

However, the problem resolved by the CRA afterwards had nothing to do with the language in which the paper was used … nor with the bug that Mr. Reed discovered. Instead, the bug that affected the contractor last Friday has been fixed. According to a review by duty, The issue has been affecting this spreadsheet since at least October 5th.

This mistake had the effect of drastically reducing support for businesses, but only for some owners and their families. It only exists in the French version of the spreadsheet.

CRA clarified the problem in an update to its spreadsheet that it released last Friday, days later duty I informed him. “Correcting the biweekly cap for unsupported employees (such as family members), which is set at half the amount every two weeks when the company has a revenue drop of less than 30%,” she wrote.

As a result of this second problem, subsidies for some business owners and their families have been cut by nearly half. In the case of someone who gets a gross salary of $ 2,000 per two weeks, the loss of support amounts to just over $ 700 for the period July 5 to August 29. However, the error does not occur if that person uses the first line of the form, which is the only line that does not contain errors.

Once this bug was fixed, CRA said for Task That’s one touch[ait] A small subset of requests. ”Agency spokesperson Sylvie Branch added that“ the Canadian Revenue Agency regrets this error and the implications it may have on the companies. ”CRA was unable to reveal the number of companies that might have been affected by these two errors or estimate the amounts of money exposed. At risk.

overspread

“These are tools that deploy quickly, and as with any rapid deployment, there are small, tiny errors Errors “Pierre Garant, partner in charge at Raymond Shabott Grant Thornton, confirmed after duty Present him the problematic data tables. “We see it is the 12th^e A copy of the spreadsheet. […] We follow it with them, use it a lot by supporting our customers, and when we report issues, the CRA corrects them strictly. “

The CRA also confirmed “implements[r] Rigorous testing and quality control of the grant spreadsheet and website. ”Police spokesman Charles Drouin wrote,“ However, despite these efforts, minor errors are possible, ”noting that the TRA“ regrets[e] Any inconvenience caused by errors.

Then he noted that the CRA advises clients to ensure they are using the latest version of the spreadsheets. “We have also released a complete list of spreadsheet releases and the changes we have made to spreadsheets since the program began.”

Employers who may be affected by these issues have until January 31 to submit the changes to the CRA, and fill in the spreadsheets again. “If applicants are unable to make changes during this timeframe, they can still minimize the impact on affected applications at a later date by contacting the Business Inquiries department,” Mr. Drwin. “Credit adjustments will not be accepted,” he added.

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