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PHOENIX DAMAGES COMPENSATION DEEMED TAXABLE
There have finally been some new developments on this issue. I followed up with the PSAC before and during the last PSAC National Board of Directors (NBoD) meeting in February. At that meeting, the PSAC informed us that they had been unable to reach an agreement with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to streamline the objection process in the Phoenix compensation taxation file.
On March 1st, the PSAC issued a message asking its members in the federal public service to file individual Notices of Objection to generate tens of thousands of requests in order to pressure the government to reverse its decision on the tax treatment of the Phoenix damages compensation rather than ruling on thousands of individual Notice of Objection requests.
In their publication, they provided instructions and wording for each member to file a notice of objection. Unfortunately, PSAC had forgotten to provide additional instructions for members who reside in Quebec. For this reason, UTE issued its own message on March 3rd to improve the Alliance's message by adding instructions on how to file a notice of objection with Revenu Québec.
Of course, members must first send their tax return to CRA and, for those living in Quebec, send their provincial tax return to Revenu Québec before they can file a notice of objection. In the meantime, we must all continue to encourage all our members to file a notice of objection in order to defend their rights and fight this bad decision by the CRA and the federal government.
It is most likely that this case will end up in the Tax Court of Canada and that the Court will decide to deal with a single case that will set the precedent for all the objections filed individually by thousands of federal public service employees. It is therefore important that each member who has received Phoenix compensation files a Notice of Objection to ensure that they are covered by a possible positive decision of the Court.
We must all continue to strongly encourage our members to file Notices of Objection at the earliest opportunity.
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UNASSIGNED UTE MEMBERS
Louise Dorion, Administrative Assistant at the National Office, continues her work in processing membership applications in the PSAC Unionware system.
As mentioned in my President's Report, we are currently in the process of filling an Administrative Assistant position at the National Office. In order to increase the pace of processing new member applications and to address the backlog of files, we have decided that the new hire will only be assigned to this task for the first four (4) months of his/her employment with our organization.
We will continue to monitor the situation very closely and make adjustments as necessary.
Respectfully submitted,
Marc Brière
National President