A bit long but bear with me it will lead to the citizenship application dilemma. I'm a CDN citizen and my wife will apply for citizenship. She has never worked nor was she in need of any personal benefit credit (GST/HST, caregiver, etc). As a result she never filed any income tax. I merely attached her SIN number during my tax submission and applied for the spousal benefit ... for the past 15 years. Effectively she wasn't required to file. Never thought that was big deal until now. First we got a letter from BC Pharmacare asking for her Notice of Assessment or otherwise she would be delisted. Of course she doesn't have one because she wasn't required to file. Two phone calls, the first with their insistence on the NOA and my persistent answer of, "she doesn't have one because she didn't need to file and her name is not included on my NOA". The second time around I cleared it up with someone who obviously understood the situation and I got a nice letter to that effect from BC Pharmacare. Then I applied for a Service Canada account and it was initially rejected because her SIN number was "inactive". We had to submit proof of the SIN and residency ... then we were able to create the SC account. Then we tried to apply online for her OAS for next year using the new Service Canada account and a note popped up "Unable to Continue ... our records indicate that you do not live in Canada or that you have a foreign address" ... well no she lives here with me. I think that because she never filed a tax return it's their way of saying you can't apply on line - she'll have send it in using snail mail. So now I'm wondering ... the application for citizenship and 5 years in Canada without needing to file income tax. I understand it is NOT a requirement for citizenship and thus our status is legal but under optional documents what would you propose we upload to minimize deep scrutiny and by that I mean a very very long process involving the filing of documents or whatever. Maybe this could be shortened if we upload the right "optional documents" right at the start. I've composed a polite letter regarding the past issues we've had with government on this matter as outlined above.