Wage and Rent Subsidy Amounts to Remain Unchanged Through to June
BRITISH COLUMBIA – The Government of Canada announced that it intends to extend the current rate structures for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) from March 14th to June 5th, 2021.
Specifically:
- The maximum wage subsidy rate for active employees would remain at 75 per cent
- The maximum rent subsidy rate would remain at 65 per cent
- Lockdown Support would remain at 25 per cent and continue to be provided in addition to the rent subsidy, providing eligible hard hit businesses with rent support of up to 90 per cent
With regard to furloughed employees, the government intends to continue to align the wage subsidy rate structure with the benefits provided through the Employment Insurance program from March 14th to June 5th, 2021. This means employers who qualify for the wage subsidy would be able to continue to claim up to a maximum benefit of $595 per week per employee to support remuneration of their furloughed workers.
Since the wage subsidy and rent subsidy programs launched, an organization’s decline in revenues has generally been determined by comparing the change in the organization’s revenues in a current calendar month with its revenues in the same calendar month of the previous year. An organization may also elect to use an alternative approach, which compares the change in the organization’s monthly revenues relative to the average of its January 2020 and February 2020 revenues.
A deeming rule provides that an organization’s decline in revenues for any particular qualifying period is the greater of its decline in revenues for the particular qualifying period and the immediately preceding qualifying period.
More details here
