Government to reimburse self-employed workers who repaid CERB

Self-employed workers who voluntarily repaid pandemic-related benefits can now apply to be reimbursed.

In February, the government of Canada announced that self-employed workers who repaid the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) voluntarily — but didn’t have to — would be reimbursed.

On Thursday, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) released the appropriate form, T180 CERB reimbursement application for self-employed individuals, to request the reimbursement.

The CRA will begin processing applications after June 15. If eligible for reimbursement, people who erroneously repaid CERB can expect the funds within approximately 90 days of submitting their applications to the CRA.

Self-employed workers whose net self-employment income was less than $5,000 and who received CERB are not required to repay the benefit, as long as they file their 2019 and 2020 tax returns by Dec. 31, 2022; their gross self-employment income was $5,000 or more in 2019 or in the 12 months prior to their initial application; and they met all other CERB eligibility criteria.

The application period for CERB closed on Dec. 2, 2020. The benefit cannot be applied for retroactively.

The CRA estimates that about 30,000 self-employed people won’t have to repay their CERB payments, representing about $240 million in benefits or about $8,000 per person on average.

The Canadian Press

The Canadian Press is a national news agency headquartered in Toronto and founded in 1917.