sounion said:
I submitted my inland app back in nov of 2012. due to delays we still don't have AIP or an OWP (sent with app).
my question is if i can do freelance writing for a local newspaper?
In order to receive payment from a Canadian company while being a freelancer residing in Canada, you would be known as a sole-proprietorship to Canada Revenue Agency. As such you would be required to report all income received from Canadian companies to the CRA, and to not do so would be illegal/tax fraud. And of course in order to report income, you need a valid SIN card which is only obtained with a work permit.
You would not need a SIN and not need work permit, if you were doing freelance work for a company located outside of Canada and being paid from outside of Canada.
If you receive payments from the Canadian newspaper, by either cash or cheque, then one of the following could happen:
- the newspaper will need to report your payment as an expense, so would need to disclose to CRA who they made the payment to. So most likely ask at some point for your SIN and all personal contact details which would be reported to CRA
- if the newspaper pays you with cash under-the-table and doesn't report it, then the newspaper is committing fraud. I doubt a legitimate newspaper would do this
- if they pay you in cheque, then when you cash the cheque it will be easy to see that a company is paying you money for something
- if any work you do has your name on it, or people know you did it and it's published... then anyone (competing freelance writer?) who knows your status in Canada could report you to the CRA for tax fraud
In your situation since you applied back in Nov 2012... you should be getting stage 1 approval/OWP any day now based on 11 months processing time. Don't risk it when your OWP should just be a short time away.