On June 21, 2021, Federal?Bill C-30, Budget Implementation Act,?2021,?No.?1, which contains various amendments to the Income Tax Act and related statutes, received royal assent and became law.
The bill implements proposals from the 2021 Budget, the 2020 Fall Economic Statement, the 2019 Budget, and other recent announcements.
Bill C-30 implements the following proposals which:
- Extend the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) to provide a maximum benefit period of 50 weeks;
- Extend the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB) to provide a maximum benefit period of 42 weeks;
- Provide an option to deduct repayments of emergency benefits in the year of receipt rather than in the year in which the repayment was made;
- Extend the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS), including Lockdown Support until September 25, 2021;
- Introduce the Canada Recovery Hiring Program refundable tax credit;
- Establish a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour;
- Amend the Old Age Security Act to
- Increase the Old Age Security pension payable to individuals aged 75 and over by 10% and
- Provide a one-time payment of $500 to pensioners who are 75 years of age or older;
- Expand access to the Canada Workers Benefit by revising the applicable eligibility thresholds for the 2021 and subsequent taxation years;
- Change the Employment Insurance rules to, among other things,
- Reduce the number of hours of insurable employment required to qualify for unemployment benefits to a national threshold of 420 hours,
- Ensure that earnings paid to a person because of the complete severance of their relationship with their former employer do not extend the person’s benefit period, and
- Extend the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid because of a prescribed illness, injury or quarantine to 26;
- Extend the waiver of interest accrual on Canada Student Loans and Canada Apprentice Loans until March 31, 2023;
- Increase excise duty rates on tobacco products;
- Remove the time limitation for an RDSP to remain registered after the cessation of a beneficiary’s eligibility for the disability tax credit and modifying grant and bond repayment obligations;
- Limit the benefit of the employee stock option deduction for employees of certain employers;
- Provide change in use rules for multi-unit residential properties;
- Establish rules for advanced life deferred annuities;
- Provide an adjustment for payments or repayments of government assistance in determining capital cost allowance for certain zero-emission vehicles;
- Extend to a wider array of eligible automotive equipment and vehicles the 100% capital cost allowance write-off for business investments in certain zero-emission vehicles;
- Amend the income tax measures providing support for Canadian journalism;
- Amend the employee life and health trust rules to allow for the conversion of health and welfare trusts to employee life and health trusts; and
- Clarify the definition of shared-custody parent for the purposes of the Canada Child Benefit.
The following recent proposals were not included in Bill C-30 and are not yet finalized:
- A new luxury tax on the retail sale of select automobiles, planes, and boats;
- A Canada-wide early learning and child care system (“day care for $10 per day”);
- New interest-free loans for Home Energy Retrofits;
- New annual 1% federal tax on the value of vacant or underused non-resident, non-Canadian owned residential real estate; and
- Updated list of “mental functions of everyday life” that will be used for assessment for the Disability Tax Credit (DTC).
