Government COVID-19 subsidies were paid to more than 56,000 companies that turned out to be insolvent and owed a total of $723 million in unpaid taxes.
The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) began in March 2020 to help small businesses pay employees, with a 75 percent wage subsidy for up to 12 weeks. The entire program cost $100.6 billion to taxpayers.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, there were 460,090 recipients of CEWS, of which 565 were in arrears or had an amount owed related to goods and services tax remittances, with $71,809,774 in total tax owed.
A total of 56,165, or 12 percent, of CEW recipients were in arrears or owed other taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), with a grand total of $651,268,162 owed to the government….