Archives for March 18, 2020

Income Support for Individuals Who Need It Most

For over 12 million low- and modest-income families, who may require additional help with their finances, the Government is proposing to provide a one-time special payment by early May 2020 through the Goods and Services Tax credit (GSTC). This will double the maximum annual GSTC payment amounts for the 2019-20 benefit year. The average boost to income for those benefitting from this measure will be close to $400 for single individuals and close to $600 for couples. This measure will inject $5.5 billion into the economy.

For over 3.5 million families with children, who may also require additional support, the Government is proposing to increase the maximum annual Canada Child Benefit (CCB) payment amounts, only for the 2019-20 benefit year, by $300 per child. The overall increase for families receiving CCB will be approximately $550 on average; these families will receive an extra $300 per child as part of their May payment. In total, this measure will deliver almost $2 billion in extra support.

Together, the proposed enhancements of the GSTC and CCB will give a single parent with two children and low to modest income nearly $1,500 in additional short-term support….

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Flexibility for Taxpayers

In order to provide greater flexibility to Canadians who may be experiencing hardships during the COVID-19 outbreak, the Canada Revenue Agency will defer the filing due date for the 2019 tax returns of individuals, including certain trusts.

For individuals (other than trusts), the return filing due date will be deferred until June 1, 2020. However, the Agency encourages individuals who expect to receive benefits under the GSTC or the Canada Child Benefit not to delay the filing of their return to ensure their entitlements for the 2020-21 benefit year are properly determined.
For trusts having a taxation year ending on December 31, 2019, the return filing due date will be deferred until May 1, 2020.
The Canada Revenue Agency will allow all taxpayers to defer, until after August 31, 2020, the payment of any income tax amounts that become owing on or after today and before September 2020. This relief would apply to tax balances due, as well as instalments, under Part I of the Income Tax Act. No interest or penalties will accumulate on these amounts during this period.

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Helping Businesses Keep their Workers

To support businesses that are facing revenue losses and to help prevent lay-offs, the government is proposing to provide eligible small employers a temporary wage subsidy for a period of three months. The subsidy will be equal to 10% of remuneration paid during that period, up to a maximum subsidy of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. Businesses will be able to benefit immediately from this support by reducing their remittances of income tax withheld on their employees’ remuneration. Employers benefiting from this measure will include corporations eligible for the small business deduction, as well as non-profit organizations and charities.

The Elks Hall has closed its facility on Bank Avenue until further notice.

The Town of Oliver will operate with reduced access to the public.  All inquiries should be via email or phone:

250 485 6200 – admin@oliver.ca

Activities surrounding the Spirit of Oliver Awards April 15th and 24th have been cancelled until further notice.

The charity golf – fund raiser for SOSS Enrichment Society scheduled for April 4/5 has been postponed until a later time.

The question is, are we at the fork in the road?

Covid 19 is just the start of our problems. In addition to the misery and uncertainty surrounding health issues we are about to face economic chaos. Retirement funds and small business will struggle for a long time.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said it best when he remarked. “Those at the lowest rank pay the highest price and when assistance is provided the money rarely gets that far down the chain.”

We all know the health issues so lets look at the other two serious concerns as part of the equation. First the economy. Tuesday it was reported that if the efforts to save the economy don’t work, US unemployment could easily reach 20%. Canada is vulnerable if that happens. It should be considered that during the worst year of the Great Depression: 1933 the rate of unemployment was 25%.

Should we be concerned? Yes.

So what we have is an economy potentially in tatters brought about by an out of control super bug. Personally I believe it’s worse than that – compounded by our poor environmental practices globally.

It is true the virus was there for a long time, it is part of a family of a kindred stains related to SARS etc. The problem is we as humans have damaged the ecosystems around us and weakened Mother Nature’s immune systems providing the inputs for mutations not before seen. Let me give but one example.

In the Okanagan farmers used to see a new invasive pest about every ten years. In the last fifteen year we see one every three to five years. Due to warmer winters these pests are allowed to survive over wintering with warmer temperatures.

We are now confronted with a virus with no known anti-body to control it. To make matters worse we have over used the anti-bodies we have for controlling established viruses. In many parts of the world extensive use of anti-bodies have been used in livestock.

The sooner we understand these things are all connected and have a bearing on our well being the sooner we will be able to prepare to repair our world’s immune system. We are reacting as opposed to being pro-active. The truth is we have to do more than buy a worlds supply of toilet paper.

Staying at home we might all think of ways to convince our governments and ourselves to think – long term.

Fred Steele