In late April of this year, The Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors (ACITA) was advised that the Canada Revenue Agency had sent notification to investigate eligibility criteria for both the CERB ($14,000) and CRB ($24,000) to a handful of Independent Travel Advisors (ITAs).
ACITA’s Brenda Slater states: “We were hopeful that the appeals process would be swift and would be found in favour of the ITAs contacted. Since then, we have been monitoring the situation closely.”
The independent agent association recently posted in its private group asking agents who had been contacted to let them know, so the group could track how many are affected.
“Within the last couple of weeks several more ITAs are now in a position where appeals have been denied, and they now require a lawyer to get them through the judicial review process,” ACITA says.
Late last week the ACITA team met with government contacts. “They clearly understand our business model, how we are paid, and why we had qualified for both programs,” says an ACITA statement.
“They are talking to both the tax department and the Ministry of Finance on our behalf to determine our next steps.”
ACITA says the issue seems to be that the interpretation of the rules differs from each case reviewer within the CRA. The biggest contributor seems to be income from more than one source and/or the $5,000 NET vs. Gross issue encountered for the CERB.
ACITA says notification of the recalls is only being received via each person’s individual CRA account. Nothing is being sent by mail to notify there is an issue. They are NOT sending anything via MAIL to notify there is an issue.
“While we wait for the government to determine what will be done, please login to your CRA accounts to see if you have a notification of repayment, and let us know ASAP at [email protected],” the group concludes.
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