A commentary by a local writer, journalist and advocate for seniors’ rights.
"Seniors’ poverty in B.C. rose from a low of 2.2 per cent in 1996 to 12.7 per cent in 2014,” according to Poverty and Inequality Among British Columbia’s Seniors, a 2017 report by the B.C. Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Surely this should compel our governments to improve the lives of vulnerable seniors. But new federal measures are being implemented that actually cause and exacerbate hardship for B.C. seniors, an unconscionable situation in such a rich country.
At the beginning of 2019, the Canada Revenue Agency brought in a nefarious new tax policy for the 2018 tax year that largely targets the poorest seniors in B.C.
Thousands of seniors in this province were sent T5007 tax slips by the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction with an amount in the “Social Assistance Payments” Box that reflected a Bus Pass subsidy and / or the Senior’s Supplement.
According to the ministry: “The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) requires that everyone who receives more than $500 in provincial assistance reports this income on their federal tax return, including the Senior’s Supplement and Bus Pass for Seniors.”
As a senior bus pass recipient, I was mortified to receive this tax slip demanding that I declare income that I never received. A note with my T5007 also states that “the income shown on the T5007 is used to calculate your entitlement to federal tax credits (such as GST) and provincial tax credits.”
Aimed almost exclusively at seniors, the new CRA directive seems ageist: “Medical and health supplements, child-care subsidy assistance, and crisis supplements are not included on the T5007 tax slip.” (MSDPR advisory.)
The repercussions to affected B.C. seniors are dire. Many income-tested government benefits are negatively affected, such as the Goods and Services/Harmonized Sales Tax; B.C. Climate Action Tax Credit; B.C. Sales Tax Credit; or B.C.’s Medical Expense Credit, amongst others.
Any increase in a senior’s yearly income from declaring the bus-pass subsidy and/or the Senior’s Supplement could push the total over the particular benefit’s threshold, thus reducing the credit amount.
The harm caused by this odious new CRA rule will be widespread and insidious. In addition to government benefits, any income-tested community program for seniors could be affected.
For instance, it could reduce subsidy amounts for affected seniors in supportive non-profit housing, where they would be expected to pay more toward their rent. Or it could impact the eligibility of seniors who benefit from income-tested affordable recreation programs or subsidized cleaning and home support services.
This news from Ottawa has turned my life upside down. The declaration of the bus subsidy “income” put me over the B.C. tax credit income threshold. I lost money from the credit, reducing my tax refund to two dollars.
That means less food in my grocery cart. It seems decidedly “un-Canadian” that corporations in this country got away with not paying between $9.4 and $11.4 billion in taxes in 2014 (as reported in the Toronto Star, June 2019) but the tax man is coming after the poorest B.C. seniors for chump change.
Those valuable tax credits serve to buffer seniors against poverty-level public pensions. Where is the fairness and logic of using one anti-poverty benefit — a bus subsidy — to reduce another? It seems wrong to turn a compassionate benefit, meant to ensure that low-income seniors have transportation, into a means to take money away from them. This results in an escalation of poverty.
The other victims of this regressive tax policy receive the B.C. Senior’s Supplement, a program to relieve the economic hardship of low-income seniors.
The new CRA rule only targets seniors who receive around the maximum monthly benefit of $49.30, pushing them over the $500 annual assistance threshold.
But here is the kicker — because the B.C. Senior’s Supplement is so stringently applied that even a few extra dollars in a senior’s pocket sharply reduces the monthly stipend, any elder getting near the maximum amount has literally nothing in this world except Old Age Security. But the federal government is still demanding a few dollars from their tax credits.
No government in power ever has the mandate to force impoverished citizens into even further privation. This cruel and wrong-headed new CRA rule should be trashed.
There is nothing “Canadian” about it!
