Phoenix-plagued PS staff should get extra time to file taxes: union
Federal public servants whose pay has been messed up by the troubled Phoenix system should be given extra time to file their income taxes this year, said Greg Phillips, president of a union representing professional employees.
About 180,000 public servants have reported problems with the Phoenix pay system since it was introduced two years ago. Employees say they have been paid too little, too much or not at all.
The errors in pay make filing income tax returns more complicated, said Phillips, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees. CAPE is the third-largest federal public service union, representing 14,000 economists, policy analysts, researchers, statisticians, translators and interpreters, among others.
“With all these underpayments and overpayments, a government employee who is mixed up in this fiasco, their taxes become incredibly complicated,” Phillips said.
Public servants who are affected should be allowed an extra month or two to file their 2017 taxes, he said. “It would be the humane thing to do.”
Anyone who owes Revenue Canada money would still have to pay up, he said. The deadline for filing 2017 income tax returns is April 30.
Because of all the problems with Phoenix, Phillips said he expects that some T4 slips may be handed
out late or just squeak in under the Feb. 28 deadline.
The federal government has already announced that public servants can be reimbursed up to $200 for tax advice to help them understand the implications of pay errors. The money can be used for an accountant or company in the business of doing tax returns.
The government assures employees that filing a claim for reimbursement won’t be processed through the Phoenix system.
Phoenix was supposed to be an efficient, automated system for paying public servants across the country.
A report by the auditor general in November painted a picture of how the massive system has floundered. As of June 2017, 59,000 employees owed the government a total of $295 million because they had been paid too much. Another 51,000 people were underpaid and owed $228 million, the report said.