How payments are applied to offset debt
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How payments are applied to offset debt
Since October 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency has resumed its activities aimed at offsetting taxpayers' debt. Offsetting involves proactively applying tax refunds and benefit payments (such as the GST/HST credit) to tax and other government debts.
The chart below outlines how government payments can be applied to specific debts.
| Government debt | Credit from Individual tax return (2023 tax year) | Credit from Individual tax return (before 2023) | CRA’s COVID-19 benefits (for example, Canada Emergency and Recovery Benefit or CERB) | Child benefits: national, provincial, and territorial | CRA benefits and credits (for example GST/HST credit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Individual tax return (2023 tax year) | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Individual tax return (before 2023) | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| CRA’s COVID-19 benefits (for example, Canada Emergency and Recovery Benefit or CERB) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Child benefits: national, provincial, and territorial | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| CRA benefits and credits (for example GST/HST credit) | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Family Orders and Agreements | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Other government debtFootnote 1 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Footnotes
- Footnote 1
-
Other government debt includes debt associated with emergency benefits issued by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). Many of our partners inactivated their debt program for offsetting purposes during the pandemic, but they have slowly been reactivated, ESDC program debt was reactivated February 2022. Note: when CRA sends benefit payments and T1 refunds to other government departments, these are referred to as Set-offs.
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- Date modified:
- 2024-04-18