OTTAWA — The Canada Revenue Agency will launch an audit pilot project to see if fraudulent applications are a problem within the Trudeau government’s $82.3 billion flagship COVID-19 corporate aid program.
The federal agency says it has detected a few illegitimate claims for the wage subsidy during the verification process that precedes any payment, but that the “vast majority” of first checks came back clean.
Since the programs’ launch, multiple media outlets have reported on identify theft linked to CERB, false applications and even fake consultants who promise to help Canadians to apply for CERB in exchange for payment, even though they may be ineligible.
Another issue is CERB “double-dippers” — people who applied and received twice the amount of CERB they were entitled to since the beginning of April. In May, a government official told parliamentarians that they had already identified at least 200,000 cases of double payments.
No comments:
Post a Comment