The Canadian government announced changes to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), which will now allow for eligible employers who had a drop in revenue can now qualify for the wage subsidy.
These changes are included as part of periods five through nine to CEWS and will be in effect until Nov. 21. The periods are broken down based on dates. Period five will be July 5 to August 1, period six begins Aug. 2 and ends Aug. 29, period seven starts begins on Aug. 30 and ends on Sept. 26, period eight with be Sept. 27 to Oct. 24, and finally, period nine begins Oct. 25 and ends Nov. 21.
Included amongst the changes will be:
- The subsidy rate varies, depending on how much revenue drops.
- If the revenue drop was less than 30 per cent the applicant can still qualify and keep getting the subsidy as employees return to work and your revenue recovers.
- Employers who were hardest hit over a period of three months get a higher amount.
- Employees who were unpaid for 14 or more days can now be included in your calculation.
- Use the current period’s, whichever work in your favour – for periods five and six, if your revenue dropped at least 30 per cent, the applicant’s subsidy rate will be at least 75 per cent.
- Even if the revenue has not dropped for the claim period, the applicant can still qualify if the average revenue over the previous three months dropped more than 50 per cent
- The maximum base subsidy rate is 60 per cent in claim periods five and six
- The maximum base subsidy rate will begin to decline in claim period seven, gradually reducing to 20 per cent in period nine.
Eligible employers to qualify for the subsidy have been expanded. Sole proprietorships, taxable corporations, certain indigenous government-owned corporations, non-profit organizations, partnerships consisting of 50 per cent or more eligible employers, and registered charities are all able to all for the program.
Too calculate the maximum subsidy amount (for periods five and six), the calculation from period four can be used – if there was a revenue drop of 30 per cent or more, then the applicant qualifies for 75 per cent of the eligible employees’ remuneration, up to maximum of $847 per week. For claim periods five and later, there is no minimum revenue drop required to qualify for the subsidy. The rate the revenue has dropped is only used to calculate how much subsidy received for those periods. To calculate, applicants can use the online calculator or spreadsheet.