CRA Discovers Billions in Improper COVID Relief Payments

Canada’s Revenue agency, the CRA, admitted to accidentally giving out nearly $10 billion in COVID benefits to people who weren’t eligible. This is based on audits of over half a million cases by the end of 2023.

• Over $7.9 billion was deemed ineligible due to program errors.
• An additional $1.7 billion resulted from people getting benefits they shouldn’t have, like applying for multiple programs or getting the wrong one.

So far, only about $2 billion has been recovered, leaving a net loss of over $7.7 billion. The CRA expects to find more errors as audits continue.

This doesn’t even include mistaken payments to businesses, which amount to over $500 million as of December 2023.