PSAC is asking members to file individual tax appeals on their personal damages payments this tax season.

When the union negotiated a $2,500 per member general damages settlement for stress and aggravation caused by the broken pay system, members reckoned they would… well… get $2500.

But unlike other damages awards, Treasury Board treated Phoenix damages like taxable income. And no amount of appeals would shift them.

So the union is asking its 165,000 members to file individual appeals once they file their returns and receive the “Notice of Assessment” from CRA.

Step by step instructions are available on the PSAC website.

“If we generate tens of thousands of tax appeals from members across the country, there is greater pressure to review the tax treatment of the damages for all PSAC members rather than ruling on thousands of individual appeals,” the union argues.