According to a recent report by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), nearly $10 billion in COVID pandemic relief payments were sent to ineligible applicants. To date, less than 20 percent of that amount has been recovered.
The CRA mentioned that only a fraction of the ineligible payments has been recovered so far. It anticipates further losses through ongoing audits.
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“Of these amounts, $1.93 billion has been recovered, resulting in a net amount owing of $7.77 billion,” the CRA stated. Ongoing audits are expected to uncover more ineligible amounts related to COVID-19 benefits.
Among the programs, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) has the highest outstanding debt of $3.89 billion owed by ineligible claimants. This is followed by CRB ($2.55 billion) and CRCB ($1.19 billion) as of December 31, 2023.
The actual cost of the CERB program exceeded the initial budget of $24 billion, reaching $81.6 billion.
During a hearing at the Senate national finance committee on April 30, Senator Pierre Dalphond inquired about the recovery of funds. Assistant Revenue Commissioner Marc Lemieux testified that the agency aimed to audit approximately 875,000 individuals who received emergency payments.
Despite efforts to recover funds, the CRA stated in its May 14 brief that by December 29, 2023, approximately 39,291 individual insolvencies were reported for taxpayers who received pandemic relief payments.
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