Question on E.I CERB Advance Payment ($2k Repayment)

Tax Topics
1

Not too sure if others are currently dealing with this, but I’ve had a couple of clients where they claimed for employment insurance during the early days of the pandemic. They were temporarily laid off and were rehired within a few weeks (up to three weeks). Their employer had informed them that for the time being, they were qualified for EI benefits for the period they were laid off. With how rushed the program was, they would received the $2k advance payment instead of regular EI benefits.

Now with Service Canada sending out notice of debt repayment letters for the $2k advance payments, some of them cannot afford to repay which ends up on collections that is sent to the CRA.

My question: If the CRA were to use the taxpayer’s refund to repay the $2k debt, would Service Canada issue them a T4E slip where they indicate on box 30 the repayment made (collected).

Many thanks for the help :pray:

2

Yes. the CERB repayment would show on a T4E and would be deductible in the year that tax refund was siphoned.

3

One of the problems with this whole shebang is determining whether the recapture is actually correct…that’s a HUGE issue to me. Seems as if both EI and CRA are sending out notices rather fast and loose and many are simply not correct (ie the claimant WAS entitled…and the feds, not surprisingly, have once again screwed up).