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Impact of Bill C-2 on public company CEWS claims: Effective date

As noted previously in our December 21, 2021 news item, Bill C-2 (An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19) contained a change that may restrict Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) claims made by a publicly traded company or a subsidiary of such a company that paid dividends to an individual who held common shares. One area of confusion was on the effective date of the change.

As noted previously in our December 21, 2021 news item, Bill C-2 (An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19) contained a change that may restrict Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) claims made by a publicly traded company or a subsidiary of such a company that paid dividends to an individual who held common shares. One area of confusion was on the effective date of the change.

On April 11, the CRA updated a COVID-19 wage and hiring support for businesses page with the following statement which provides more clarity:

“Publicly traded companies and taxable dividends: For claim period 23 and onward, if you are a publicly traded company or a subsidiary of such a company, you are not entitled to any wage subsidy for that claim period in which you paid taxable dividends to an individual who is a holder of common shares of the company or of the subsidiary of the company.”