Settling the financial affairs of a deceased loved one is trying enough, but for Charles O’How the government managed to add insult to injury after he received a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to return rebates issued to him and his now-deceased wife Peggy, who passed away Jan. 18.
The CRA asked O’How, 86, to return both the GST and the carbon tax rebate issued to him and his wife at the start of the year.
“I know she had gotten the cheques in the first part of January,” he said. “I don’t really know what they’re on about. Now I have to send it back and I never got one because we’re a family.”
A spokesperson for the Alberta Ministry of Finance explained that the decision would have come from the CRA and the province is now playing catch-up with the file, noting that the province doesn’t actually handle personal income tax.
“A lot of people are surprised that the provincial government doesn’t have their tax data. But the fact is you send that info to the federal government, they let us know how much they collected from income tax and send us a cheque,” explained Alberta Treasury communications officer Carolyn Gregson. “We don’t actually keep the tax data here in Alberta.”
Gregson noted that it was telling that requests to repay both the GST and the carbon levy arrived at the same time.
“The carbon levy rebate follows the same model as the GST cheque. The current rebate for this year is based on 2015 tax filings. How we modeled the program is that you get the rebate first, then we worry about eligibility for any year in July once everyone has filed their taxes,” she said. “If a rebate was paid in error, meaning the government issued the rebates when they only had 2015 tax data, it would have been issued based on that information at the time. There’s a lot of circumstances where that can happen — it’s not just from the death of an individual.”
Charles and Peggy O’How had married after both of their spouses had passed away. His first wife Bertha O’How and Peggy’s first husband Ken MacLeod both passed away in 2010.
Complicating matters is that Charles is not legally the executor of the estate as Peggy’s children are.
“They’re in Mexico and they won’t be back until the beginning of April,” he said. “This still will come on me though, because we were married.”
A spokesperson for the CRA explained that while the adjustment to the benefit would have to be repaid, the family would not be penalized for any delays returning the payment.
“Unfortunately, sometimes we find out about these things after a benefits payment has already been sent or when it’s too late to intercept the cheque or direct deposit,” said TJ Madigan of the CRA. “If a benefits payment is made after an individual passes away, only the exact amount of the overpayment needs to be returned. There is never any penalties or interest applied. If there’s financial hardship, CRA can also work with the estate to arrange repayment over a longer period of time, with no interest or penalties.”
Gregson said O’How and others affected by the bureaucratic hiccup should contact the provincial government to see if they could get things sorted out.
“This is a new program that’s just rolled out. If there needs to be fine tuning, that’s normal for public policy,” she said. “On an ongoing basis, things are assessed.”
For O’How, the whole situation has been an unnecessary headache.
“Why didn’t they just say since I never got one myself that they just make it even?” he asked. “Now I have to send it back. They’ll probably send me one later, but it doesn’t say anything about it in the letter.”
The communication line for the Alberta Treasury Board is 780 427 5364.
