Push underway to allow thousands of British Columbians to keep $1K COVID benefit

A new report is pushing the BC government to act fast and fairly to allow more than 12,000 people to keep their COVID-19 benefits.

The BC Emergency Benefit was a one-time, tax-free payment to applicants whose ability to work was affected by COVID-19, and about 90,000 people applied for it before it closed in December 2020. The benefit paid out $653 million to eligible applicants.

However, three years later, the province is “clawing” that back because of a technicality that many weren’t informed of at the time, according to the Ombudsperson report.

“When the benefit first rolled out on May 1, 2020, one of the requirements was that applicants had to have filed or agreed to file their 2019 taxes. The ministry did not originally impose a deadline for filing 2019 taxes as a condition of receiving the benefit. However, legislation introduced eight weeks later changed that by establishing a deadline of January 1, 2021. By the time this change was made, 90 percent of applications had already been received,” Ombudsperson Jay Chalke said.

The Ombudsperson is an independent officer of the Legislature, complaints of unfair or unreasonable treatment by provincial and local public authorities.

The report says that as of 2022, 12,000 people have been told that their eligibility was reversed and that they need to pay the $1,000 back because of a tax filing deadline the ministry did not tell them about.

bcombudsperson.ca

“As a result of this investigation, I am recommending that the Ministry of Finance contact all affected individuals and give them a fair chance to file their 2019 tax returns within 90 days and if they do so, allow them to keep the benefit,” Chalke explained.

“Now that the immediate crisis of the early days of the pandemic has passed, it is possible for the ministry to undertake retrospective assessment of the benefit and its delivery. The auditing already underway is one part of such an assessment,” he added.

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To read the report in full, head here.