Among many examples, a young adult applicant who until recently was a dependent is someone who may not have filed a tax return for one or several of the relevant tax years. And checking no/no (no, not required to file, and no, did not file) for those years should not, probably will not, have any negative impact at all.
For many applicants, however, checking no/no may indeed increase the risks of elevated scrutiny even though truthful and it meets the requirements for complying with tax filing obligations.
As always, always, the particular facts and circumstances in the individual case matter, and how things go, what draws extra or unwanted attention, depends . . . depends on context, depends on the impression made, depends on how individual pieces in the puzzle relate to the other pieces in the puzzle.
Thus, in contrast to the young adult applicant, if the apparent head of a household with dependent children checks no/no, that is bound to invite some questions and related inquiries. The absence of a visible means of support, for example, tends to be a context element which can suggest the possibility of undisclosed employment, and in particular undisclosed employment abroad. The other side of that coin, of course, is that the applicant reporting employment history for a given year which, in turn, the applicant checks no/no, will obviously raise a red flag . . . one or the other at least appears to be incorrect.
There is no employment requirement. There are, nonetheless, reasons why the applicant must disclose work/activity history in the application. Sure, the big one is that a history of employment in Canada tends to support the applicant's claim of presence in Canada. It is also, however, about giving IRCC a more comprehensive picture of the applicant and the applicant's life in Canada, and work history gives IRCC some markers against which to compare other information in the application and in the applicant's immigration records . . . and with the applicant's declarations about complying with tax filing obligations in particular.
All a part of the whole picture. The details matter, for sure. But how the details fit (or don't) into the whole picture matters a lot as well.
Contrary to much of the grousing in forums, IRCC processing agents and Citizenship Officers are trained and experienced to identify and figure out the clues, and to have a rather insightful understanding about those whose applications they are assessing. They are still bureaucrats. They fall well short of perfectly reading everyone. They have demanding case loads and time constraints forcing them to rush things some. But my impression is that many forum participants would be quite surprised to see how much the processing agents and officers can discern from what is in the application and the client's immigration records.
For many applicants, however, checking no/no may indeed increase the risks of elevated scrutiny even though truthful and it meets the requirements for complying with tax filing obligations.
As always, always, the particular facts and circumstances in the individual case matter, and how things go, what draws extra or unwanted attention, depends . . . depends on context, depends on the impression made, depends on how individual pieces in the puzzle relate to the other pieces in the puzzle.
Thus, in contrast to the young adult applicant, if the apparent head of a household with dependent children checks no/no, that is bound to invite some questions and related inquiries. The absence of a visible means of support, for example, tends to be a context element which can suggest the possibility of undisclosed employment, and in particular undisclosed employment abroad. The other side of that coin, of course, is that the applicant reporting employment history for a given year which, in turn, the applicant checks no/no, will obviously raise a red flag . . . one or the other at least appears to be incorrect.
There is no employment requirement. There are, nonetheless, reasons why the applicant must disclose work/activity history in the application. Sure, the big one is that a history of employment in Canada tends to support the applicant's claim of presence in Canada. It is also, however, about giving IRCC a more comprehensive picture of the applicant and the applicant's life in Canada, and work history gives IRCC some markers against which to compare other information in the application and in the applicant's immigration records . . . and with the applicant's declarations about complying with tax filing obligations in particular.
All a part of the whole picture. The details matter, for sure. But how the details fit (or don't) into the whole picture matters a lot as well.
Contrary to much of the grousing in forums, IRCC processing agents and Citizenship Officers are trained and experienced to identify and figure out the clues, and to have a rather insightful understanding about those whose applications they are assessing. They are still bureaucrats. They fall well short of perfectly reading everyone. They have demanding case loads and time constraints forcing them to rush things some. But my impression is that many forum participants would be quite surprised to see how much the processing agents and officers can discern from what is in the application and the client's immigration records.
