Governments have a knack for making it difficult to access aid for the poorest. Another example is the single supplement to the Canada housing benefit program, a recent federal government initiative.
Since 1er last December, Ottawa offered $500 to people aged 15 and over who spend more than 30% of their net income on housing. They must earn less than $20,000 a year for a single person and less than $35,000 for a family.
A way to compensate for the steep rent increases, but do you still need to know?
Not only is tax-free assistance not well known, but the deadline for applying is March 31, well before many people meet with their tax preparer, who could alert them to the existence of the measure.
“As soon as the measure was adopted, I received telephone calls from housing assistance organizations here in Longueuil, who were already anticipating that people would have difficulty, one, to have access to information and, two, to fill out the request, says Bloc Québécois MP Denis Trudel, spokesperson for housing issues. It is not customary for Quebecers to apply to the federal government for housing assistance,” he points out.
Extension requested
The member for Longueuil-Saint-Hubert will write by the end of the week to Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen to ask for a three-month extension to the March 31 deadline.
For the moment, the minister does not seem to want to budge. “As there are less than six weeks left to apply, we encourage tenants to take advantage of this unique add-on and check to see if they qualify,” his office responded by email to the idea of extending the deadline.
To obtain the supplement, taxpayers must apply online by going to “my account” or by telephone by contacting the Canada Revenue Agency.
A professor of taxation wonders about the merits of such a short deadline.
“I am of the opinion that the application period could nevertheless have been extended until the end of the tax return filing period so that tax preparers and aid organizations (eg ACEF) could give information to taxpayers, says Tommy Gagné-Dubé, assistant professor in the Department of Taxation at the School of Management of the University of Sherbrooke.
He hypothesizes that the date of March 31 was chosen because it coincided with the end of the fiscal year of the Government of Canada.
Carleton University professor of political management, Jennifer Robson, co-authored a study in September 2020 showing that between 10 and 12% of working-age people, often low-wage earners, do not submit a tax return. income, this saved the federal government $1.7 billion in unclaimed benefits.