Nearly $200 million in tax credits for tech companies are delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and CEOs are warning they’ll need to lay off workers if the money doesn’t come soon.
Ottawa has rolled out a host of emergency assistance programs for businesses over the past two weeks. In an effort to minimize the burden on companies dealing with the economic fallout from the spread of the coronavirus, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced on March 18 it would suspend most audits of businesses for four weeks. However, any company scheduled to be audited is not eligible to receive money from the 34-year-old scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) tax credit, which distributes upwards of $5 billion to companies every year, until the process is complete.
