The Board of Directors approved amendments to WorkSafeBC's policies concerning penalties, as provided in Assessment Manual items AP1-47-1 Penalties and AP1-38-5 Payroll Estimates.

The Workers Compensation Act gives WorkSafeBC the authority to impose penalties on firms that do not report payroll or make payments on time. The Assessment Manual penalties policy was amended to include two tiered penalty schedules that clearly set out penalty amounts based on the amount due or estimated to be due from a firm. In addition, the policy on payroll estimates was amended to provide that penalties based on estimated payroll are generally not subject to amendment once a firm reports actual payroll.

The amendments came into effect on February 28, 2006, and apply to all decisions made on or after that date.