No end to headaches from Phoenix pay system

Federal government workers who’ve been overpaid through the troubled Phoenix pay system are voicing frustration with a plan to report the overpayments in order to avoid costly tax implications.

Public Services and Procurement Canada has given civil servants until Jan. 19 to declare overpayments so the pay centre can register the amounts in the Phoenix system by Jan. 31.

Under the plan, employees who report by the deadline will only have to pay the net amount they received.

Those who don’t declare the overpayment on time will have to repay the gross overpayment, including tax and other deducted amounts that they never actually received, which for some could add up to thousands of dollars.

But many of those civil servants have complained of busy signals or being put on hold indefinitely when calling the Phoenix pay centre.

One woman, who identified herself as Jo JJ, posted a video on YouTube Wednesday of her trying to call the centre to report what she described as a “small overpayment” that predated the 2017 tax year.

“I’ve been trying to call this number for days — about a week already,” she said, holding her cellphone’s speaker to the camera as it beeped.

“As you can hear, it just gets a busy tone and it just hangs up. You can’t even get through to a voice mail, can’t leave a message, nothing.”

Public Services acknowledged the centre is experiencing higher-thannormal call volumes as the deadline approaches.