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AI Legalese Decoder: How It Can Help You Navigate Your Mom’s Debt Crisis

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AI Legalese Decoder can help unravel the complexities of the legal jargon and provide clear, understandable explanations for the situation at hand.

**The Current Situation: A Financial Mess**

It has been more than 10 months since the recipient of the letter for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) repayment. The individual, who recently moved back in with her, has only just revealed this information to me. According to her, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) requested her bank statements, which were promptly sent in. However, she still claims to owe the full amount, alleging that her accountant failed to email the necessary documentation.

It is unclear who this “accountant” is, and the individual lacks a proper filing system, further complicating the matter. Additionally, only a portion of the funds (amounting to $3000) remains, with suspicions that the rest may have been accessed by her ex-husband without her knowledge.

**Potential Course of Action: Seeking Guidance**

With these issues at hand, it is uncertain whether it would be wise to engage in another appeal with the CRA. There are concerns that triggering further curiosity from the agency might lead to an audit. The individual, with whom contact has recently been reestablished, appears to have reservations about the prospect of an audit.

As for my advice, I had advised her against ignoring the letter and to consider making some form of repayment. However, it is uncertain whether pursuing a second appeal would be worth the effort, or if there are alternative options such as seeking legal counsel.

**AI Legalese Decoder: Offering Clarity and Insight**

In this complicated and potentially dire situation, the AI Legalese Decoder can provide valuable assistance by deciphering legal terminology and providing clear and easy-to-understand explanations of the potential consequences and courses of action. It can help break down the implications of appealing a second time, the risks of triggering an audit, and the possible benefits of seeking legal assistance. Ultimately, utilizing AI Legalese Decoder can enable the individual to make informed decisions and navigate the complexities of the legal system.

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Original Content:
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Rewritten Content:

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31 Comments

  • Frenchyyyy4166

    Set up a payment plan with CRA. Call them and tell them I canÔÇÖt afford to pay the whole amount at once and they will set up a monthly plan for her.

    Appealing and lawyers are pointless, CRA deemed her not eligible to receive the cerb, now she has to pay it back.

  • Significant_Wealth74

    Secretly this is going to end with OP helping their mother out. The writing is on the wall. The sob letter isnÔÇÖt for the CRA ­ƒÿé

  • BronzeDucky

    You havenÔÇÖt given any indication of a reason to ÔÇ£appealÔÇØ anything, much less get a lawyer involved. If she doesnÔÇÖt think she owed them the money, she needs to get a tax professional to go over her returns and statements, and figure it out.

  • TelevisionMelodic340

    There’s got to be something else besides CERB repayment going on, because the max payment for CERB was only $2k/four week period for a max of 7 periods (so a total of $14k). Have you seen the paperwork from the CRA?

  • pfcguy

    Just stay out of it. Not your circus, not your monkeys. You can’t advise her what to do because you don’t even know the whole story, you probably don’t even know 20% of it.

    The CRA apparently believes she receives CERB when she wasn’t entitled to it. Does she have any evidence to the contrary?

  • BoredHungryServant

    What are you going to appeal? If she owes it back and didnt qualify for the payments, she should pay it back. Setup a payment plan with CRA if necessary.

  • JohnMcafee4coffee

    Well,

    Your mother was either entitled to CERB, or if she was not entitled

    Many Canadians during Covid, needed help from the government. I needed extra money, but not every Canadian qualified for assistance.

    Each person, needs to take personal responsibility for their own actions, and understand the choices they make.

    If your mother qualified for CERB legitimately, then there is no issue. Obviously she needs to pay it back so that says that she did not qualify for it.

    In my opinion, and the opinions of many others your mother needs to pay back the money. IÔÇÖm sorry life is hard and IÔÇÖm sorry that itÔÇÖs expensive but other people had hard lives and had expenses but didnÔÇÖt qualify for assistance and didnÔÇÖt take it.

    your mother decided that she wanted the money whether or not she qualified or didnÔÇÖt qualify thatÔÇÖs on her to figure out.

    Many people have debts and unfortunately your mother took, but wasnÔÇÖt entitled to it and she has to pay it back. Canadians really have no sympathy because during Covid people needed help and didnÔÇÖt take the money because they werenÔÇÖt allowed to.

    She has to pay it back

  • Equivalent_Catch_233

    If she is concerned about the audit, then the only reasonable course of action is to repay 25K instead of risking the audit that can uncover something that will even increase her debt to the CRA.

    Appealing makes sense only if she has any proof that she was actually eligible for CERB. She is not sure if she was, and even has no idea about the true state of her finances.

    Paying for a lawyer would be a waste of money in this case as it would require substantial work on uncovering her finances and will cost a lot.

    Whether her ex-husband has anything to do with it is irrelevant for CRA. Even if she had definitive proof that it was him who deceived her, she is still on the hook for those 25K. The only difference there is that she could sue the ex-husband for this money. But it would take money to pay for lawyers, and take years to do, and there is no guarantee that it will pay off.

    So really, the only way forward to cut the losses is to repay those money to the CRA.

    Of course, she does not have 25K to pay, so you need to call CRA and ask for a payment plan, for example to repay it over 2 or 3 years.

  • sirver4658

    DonÔÇÖt steal my tax money. Pay it back.

  • Future_Crow

    I guarantee that her accountant will not be helpful in this matter. They prefer to have nothing to do with it.

  • westcoastcdn19

    How much does she owe? Did she qualify to receive the benefit?

  • HendyHauler

    Call and set up a payment plan asap. Max time for repayment is 2 years. If you need to extend that timeline further, you talk to them and send over all your Financials. Income,debts,bills, etc, and they will determine 2 years isn’t possible and set up a longer timeline. CRA won’t care about a poor me letter. The rules were clear most didn’t qualify and took it anyways. Expecting the gov to just let it go not to pay it back is dumb.

  • Art--Vandelay--

    First step is to find an accountant that isnÔÇÖt telling her to ÔÇ£be more emotionalÔÇØ.

    This isnÔÇÖt really a grey area. Either she was eligible, in which case she can prove it and get the debt removed.
    Or she wasnÔÇÖt, and she has to repay it and should try to set up a plan

  • justmeandmycoop

    OP, stay out of your momÔÇÖs financial problems. She created them, she can figure it out. My guess is this isnÔÇÖt all about CERB but not paying her taxes for a few years as well.

  • tigebea

    So what is her story? Not including emotions. The CRA does make mistakes, so do accountants, itÔÇÖs human nature. If something was filed incorrectly itÔÇÖs possible that it simply needs to be re-filed and problem solved. If she claimed CERB, and was ineligible, sheÔÇÖs going to have to pay up. ItÔÇÖs black and white no grey areas.

    Look into what constitutes eligibility, if she meets that great. If not, figure out a repayment plan with CRA.

    Stop freaking out. Your more capable than you even know, your on the right track to solving this problem. There will be more to deal with in life, you donÔÇÖt need to let it weigh on you. ItÔÇÖs a problem but you will get through it, and the next problem will be easier and so forth. YouÔÇÖve got this op.

  • Dowew

    A few questions

    1) Was/is your mom working ? The point of the CERB was to replace income that was temporarily lost due to COVID. The problem is it wasn’t vetted before it was paid out so anyone who applied for it was paid. What is especially nasty is a lot of provincial welfare officers directed their welfare clients and disability clients to apply for it knowing they didn’t qualify, in order to remove them from the rolls. It was an accounting trick that has destroyed lives and everyone watching could see this coming.

    2) You need to call the CRA with your mom and get more details. It possible you or your mom are being scammed. Confirm with the CRA that this demand letter is legit. Ask them what the criteria were and why your mom didn’t meet them.

    3) as others have said, set up a payment plan with the CRA for your mom. DO NOT PAY OFF YOUR MOM’S DEBT FOR HER.

  • No-Transportation587

    CRA is very fair when organizing a repayment plan.

  • TheMysticalBaconTree

    You seem to have very little info about her financial situation. Remember, this is not your problem to fix. You canÔÇÖt fix it for her. You can help, but that requires her to WANT you to help and it doesnÔÇÖt seem like that is the case here.

  • KenEnglish1986

    The CRA will NOT be going away..

  • Ok_Afternoon_110

    Work with CRA, they can be reasonable in these circumstances.

  • knigmich

    Extremely easy to know if you were eligible or not. Something like either youÔÇÖre eligible for EI or made under $1000 a week or something like that. Your mom working what sounds like under the table, avoiding taxes, then claim self business to try to ÔÇ£trickÔÇØ CRA is not going to make them eligible. Ask her to show you how much she claimed on taxes every year. Sounds to me like they lied and werenÔÇÖt eligible for EI at the time. Telling the CRA you make a certain amount of money then later filling out ur taxes with a different number is two different things. Paying that much money sounds like she owed tax money too. IÔÇÖd be very careful fighting this battle without actual paid professional help.

  • humanefly

    How is this not criminal level fraud? Why did we hand out money to people who had no business taking it? We should have made it quite clear that fraudulent collection of benefits would be prosecuted

  • ennsey

    Consumer proposal. They will include CERB

  • Nervous-Situation-18

    There might be a lot of wiggle room, CRA sometimes make decisions based on the fact that individuals donÔÇÖt reply, so they make up stuff and send it in the mail. Please contact them, I went in person to dispute their tax that they assumed I collected, when I sat and explained that the commercial tenants did not pay their rent I cannot pay tax on it, poof wishie washie new number agreed upon which was a fraction of the $$$ in letter. You can reduce the amount owed by an easy 50-90%. Just need to contact and explain the situation, everyone got free money almost no one paying back. Go fix this.

  • Ok-Olive4272

    The best thing for your mom to do is call cra and explain her situation and make a payment plan. SheÔÇÖs not the only one that took the money that didnÔÇÖt qualify there was a lot of people including me and IÔÇÖm going threw a bankruptcy for all my debts. Good luck

  • Pat2004ches

    If you want to help and your mom will allow you to, you can set it up with CRA that you are allowed to represent her. Please donÔÇÖt waste your time doing so if you think your mom will withhold information from you. If she isnÔÇÖt willing to disclose information to you, you canÔÇÖt help at all and you will not succeed in helping her solve her issues. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/representative-authorization/overview.html

  • Andy_Something

    Lawyers are expensive — you don’t involve them in things this small. That also raises the question of why a woman who can’t pay back $25,000 has an accountant — assuming there is an accountant.

    The first step is determining if your mother qualified for CERB or not — that should be pretty easy as the qualifications were 3-4 criteria and you should be able to find those online. From memory I think she had to be 15 or older (check that one off), had made $5000 in the previous year, and had lost income because of COVID restrictions.

    Please confirm the criteria yourself but that is what I kind of remember. That isn’t a high bar to meet so she either qualified or she did not.

    So if your mom was entitled to CERB then contact CRA and you’ll be able to get a positive resolution. They will need to have some sort of documentation to prove she qualified and that is it.

    If your mom did not qualify and took CERB anyway then there is nothing to do but pay it back.

  • Fit-Economist-3273

    Don’t *uck with the CRA. They will make you donate an organ for their money

  • Commercial_Oil250

    Is it possible to fill out a ÔÇ£Reconsideration LetterÔÇØ ? Not sure, might be too late. Maybe someone on here would know.

  • Dune_Use

    wow are you the only one freaking out? She should be too. Why show you the letter? What is her expectation from you? Please find that out first. Try your best not to get involved. At least not financially. Good luck.