New Brunswick's first-ever carbon tax rebate is on the way. Here's how it works

Check your bank accounts, New Brunswickers — your first-ever federal carbon tax rebate is due today.

New Brunswickers have been paying a price on carbon in one form or another for more than four years, but this week marks the first time we're getting it back directly.

That's because the Higgs government scrapped its own carbon tax earlier this year — one that did not include a rebate — in favour of the Trudeau government's federal system.

Premier Blaine Higgs said his motive was to get money into New Brunswickers' hands as fast as possible, given soaring grocery and housing costs.

"How do we get relief to people who want it right now, in their homes, at a time when inflation is higher than they've experienced, maybe in their lifetime?" he said.

"This will do that."

WATCH | Reporter Jacques Poitras breaks down the carbon tax rebate: 

To be clear, however, this is a federal rebate, not a provincial one.

Ottawa requires all the provinces to put a price on carbon emissions equivalent to $65 per tonne this year.

That works out to 14.3 cents on a litre of unleaded gasoline.

If a province doesn't develop its own program, the federal system applies, complete with rebates.

Owing to the twists and turns of politics, residents of other provinces have been getting rebates for months or even years before we have.

This week we join the club.

Q. How much will I get?

A single New Brunswicker will get a rebate of $92 every quarter.

For a family of four, the rebate will be $184. (That's $92 for the first adult, $46 for the spouse, and $23 for each child under the age of 19.)

For this quarter only — the payment going out this week — those amounts will be double: $184 per person or $368 for a family of four.

That's because this week's payment covers two quarters of 2023.

Residents of other Atlantic provinces that switched to the federal carbon tax this year received their first quarterly rebates in July, covering the three months from July to September.

But Ottawa says because New Brunswick announced its switch too late, it wasn't able to make the rebate calculations in time to send out the money in July.

So this week's payment will be for both the July-September and October-December periods.

Q. I didn't apply for the rebate. Did I miss the chance to get it? 

No.

The Canada Revenue Agency calculates your eligibility for the rebate based on your last income tax return.

As long as you filed your taxes in the spring, you don't need to do anything to get the rebate.

Q. How will it arrive? 

If you have set up direct deposit from CRA for any income tax refunds you receive, you'll get the rebate the same way.

It will show up as a deposit labelled "climate action incentive."

Residents of other provinces have been getting rebates for months or even years before we have. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

According to Ottawa, the money should land on the last business day before the official Oct. 15 payment date — which would mean Friday, Oct. 13.

If you're not registered for direct deposit, you'll get a cheque in the mail.

CRA says allow 10 days for it to arrive before you contact them to check on it.

Q. I'm a rural New Brunswicker.  How do I get the 10-per-cent rural top-up?

To receive the top-up, you must check a box on your income tax return at tax time.

That box wasn't on tax return forms for New Brunswick this year, because New Brunswick had not yet switched to the federal carbon tax system at the time.

Ottawa says when you fill out your 2023 return next spring, you can check the rural top-up box and you'll then get this year's top-up paid retroactively.

Q. What if I'm new to Canada?

To be eligible for this rebate, you must be a resident at the start of the month when the money is sent out.

The CRA says newcomers need to fill out some forms to apply for the rebate. They're available here under the heading "Are you a newcomer to Canada?"

Q. Any other wrinkles?

Just one.

If you owe CRA some money for unpaid taxes, the agency will apply your carbon tax rebate against that amount.

In that case, you wouldn't get any money but the rebate would be applied against what you owe to reduce your debt.

Q. If we've been paying carbon tax since April 2019, why has it taken until now to get a rebate?

New Brunswick is now on its third or fourth carbon tax system, depending on how you look at it.

The Gallant government developed the first, a version that didn't meet the federal requirements because it used accounting sleight-of-hand to spare consumers any impact.

That defeated the point of a price on carbon: to make fossil fuel consumption more expensive and less attractive at the pumps.

In the 2018 election, Higgs promised to make New Brunswickers whole if Ottawa forced us to pay.

"We will refund the money to taxpayers in the form of tax relief."

Ottawa rejected the Gallant tax and imposed its own version in April 2019, complete with rebates.

You may not have noticed them at the time, because they were incorporated into your tax filing and did not arrive in your bank account as a separate payment.

By then, Higgs was in power and he created his own version, which Ottawa approved.

That meant an end to the federal rebate after just one year.

Higgs used some of his new revenue to lower income taxes and gas taxes, but didn't make people completely whole, as he'd promised. Some of the revenue was spent on climate programs.

In 2022, Ottawa began applying stricter standards to provincial carbon tax regimes — requiring they be applied to natural gas for home heating, for example.

That led Higgs to cancel his version effective July 1 so that the federal system could kick in with its rebates.