British Columbia WCB sets effective dates for retroactive employer registations.

The Workers' Compensation Board is extending the period for which it will backdate assessments to approximately three years for employers who did not register with the board when they were first required to do so.

In general, employers are required to register with the board as of the date they first employ workers. For employers who do not do this, the board currently has a policy of backdating their registration to January 1 of the previous year for calculating employer assessments and providing coverage to workers.

The board wants to extend the retroactive period in order to deter employers who consider not registering and to allow the board to collect assessments over a longer period of time from these employers.

Under the new policy, which will take effect January 1, 2007, the board could set the effective date for employer registration as far back as January 1 of three years before the current year. This date will apply to all decisions made on or after January 1, 2007. However, the board notes that if it has evidence that an employer purposely tried to avoid registering by not providing true statements or by ignoring registration requests, the board may backdate the registration to an earlier date.

To help employers adjust to the change, the board says that it will backdate registrations to no earlier than January 1, 2005 under the new policy, unless the board has evidence that the employer purposely avoided registering.

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