Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS)

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The CERS is available to a number of business, whether you rent or own your business properties. Below is a summary of the program, and of course if you have any questions please contact a member of our team!

If your company has been negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and it’s repeated shut-downs, you may be eligible for the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy. If you own or rent your property, please look at the following to see if they apply to you.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible to receive the rent subsidy, you must meet all four of the following criteria – you:

  1.  Meet at least one of these conditions:

    · You had a CRA business number on September 27, 2020.
    · You had a payroll account on March 15, 2020, or another person or partnership made payroll remittances on your behalf
    · You purchased the business assets of another person or partnership who meets condition b above, and have made an election under the special asset acquisition rules
  2. Are an eligible business, charity, or non-profit (eligible entity)

    · The following are eligible: Individuals, corporations that pay income tax, non-profit, charities, partnerships, certain Indigenous entities, registered Canadian amateur athletic associations, registered journalism organizations and private schools or colleges.
    · If your business, charity, or non-profit is related to another eligible entity, you may be considered an “affiliated entity”. This may affect your calculations for the subsidy.
  3.  Experienced a drop in revenue

    · Your drop in revenue is calculated by comparing your eligible revenue during the reference period with your eligible revenue from a previous period (baseline revenue).
    · There is no minimum revenue drop required to qualify for the subsidy. The rate your revenue has dropped is only used to calculate how much subsidy you receive for these periods.
  4. Eligible revenueEligible revenue generally includes revenue earned in Canada from:
    •  selling goods
    • rendering services, and
    • others’ use of your resources
  5. Have eligible expenses

    To apply for CERS, you must have a qualifying property. Only certain expenses you pay for qualifying properties are eligible for CERS.

    Qualifying property
    Properties that do qualify include any “real or immovable property” (buildings or land) in Canada that your business or organization:
    · owns or rents, and
    · uses in the course of your ordinary activitiesIf you own the qualifying property, eligible expenses are:
    · Property and similar taxes
    · Property insurance
    · Interest on commercial mortgages

    If you rent the qualifying property, eligible expenses are:
    · Rent
    · Amounts required to be paid or payable by you under a net lease

    Eligible expenses

    For each claim period, you can claim eligible expenses up to a maximum of:
    · $75,000 per business location (base and top-up)
    · $300,000 in total for all locations (including any amounts claimed by affiliated entities)
    · applies to the base subsidy only

Available claim periods begin November 28, 2020 to May 8, 2021.

Regards,

Capstone LLP team

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