Treaty-exempt non-resident employers may be entitled to CEWS assistance for non-resident employees only intermittently in Canada

It is suggested that, on a literal reading, a U.S. resident that was not subject to Canadian income tax by virtue of not having a permanent establishment here and that employed U.S. employees mostly in the U.S. but also on an intermittent basis (say several days a quarter) in Canada, so that it had a Canadian payroll remittance account, and that had the requisite decline in qualifying revenue, could potentially claim a CEWS wage subsidy for the full amount of its U.S. employees’ salaries during the qualifying period. Granted, amounts paid at any time by an employer to an employee at a time that the employer is a "qualifying non-resident employer" and the employee is a "qualifying non-resident employee" are excluded from “eligible remuneration” for CEWS purposes. However:

If NR Co chooses not to file an application pursuant to paragraph 153(7)(a) to be classified as a qualifying non-resident employer, or is not eligible to be considered a qualifying non-resident employer for some other reason (for example, failing to comply with the requirements of the certified non-resident employer program), it would be liable to withhold, but it would be eligible for the CEWS.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Alex Ghani, Stan Shadrin, and Boris Volfovsky, “How Does the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy Apply to Non-Resident Employers?,” COVID-19 and Canadian Tax for the Owner-Manager/Canadian Tax Focus (Canadian Tax Foundation), July 2020, p. 4 under s. 125.7(1) - eligible remuneration.