Can you become a Canadian citizen without an NOA i.e. if you've never had a need to file a tax return in Canada due to non-resident tax residency but you've met the physical presence requirements (the no. of days required to be physically present in Canada).
I'm trying to figure out whether one can be eligible for Canadian citizenship if they are a tax resident and routinely live in the US but are present in Canada for 1095 days in 5 years prior to the citizenship application, would they be able to still apply for citizenship, and be approved.
Short answer:
Technically, yes. But as Raj mentioned, it is going to be a rough ride.
At least p
robably a rough ride . . . potentially rough enough it could be rather difficult staying in the saddle sufficiently long to complete the ride.
Beyond that it can get very complicated depending on the details. Moreover, it is subject to a range of contingencies, a lot of "
IF this . . . OR that . . . then this . . . OR that . . . lots of loose ends going in various directions."
Forecasting how it will actually go is deeply tangled in probabilities and RISKS.
. . . looks like the RQ really looks at the details of whether you truly lived in Canada with the intention of making it a permanent residence versus not.
So far, for now, "
intent" is NOT a requirement.
And there is no direct qualifying requirement based on the purpose for granting citizenship, which is to facilitate a path for immigrants to come and settle PERMANENTLY in Canada.
Which is not to dismiss the law's purpose. The requirements more or less indirectly reflect a scheme intended to effect that purpose, and thus the purpose can influence how the requirements are interpreted and applied . . . recognizing this does not change the substantive elements of the law. Sorting this out is not easy, but perhaps is at least partially illustrated by the burden of proof.
Currently it appears that only a small percentage of applicants are challenged to submit proof of all the days they were actually physically present in Canada (there have been occasions in the past when up to one-in-four applicants were issued a full-blown RQ), and only a small portion of these applicants are required to go to a hearing with a Citizenship Judge and meet the burden of proving days present in Canada.
But make no mistake, if IRCC determines there is reason to require the applicant prove all the days the applicant claims to have been actually, physically present in Canada, it is NOT enough to have been physically present in Canada. Many seem to overlook the fact that days in Canada do NOT count UNLESS --
-- IRCC infers the applicant's presence for days between a known date the applicant was IN Canada and some later date (typically this is about a known date-of-entry and the next known-or-reported date of exit, essentially relying on the travel history based presence calculation), OR
-- the applicant PROVES actual physical presence those days
In other words, absent a favourable inference,
being IN Canada might not count unless the applicant PROVES being in Canada that date.
To quote a Denzel Washington character in a cop movie "
It's not what you know, it's what you can prove."
And what constitutes sufficient "
proof" is itself variable. That gets into questions about the weight of the evidence. And the weight of the evidence can vary dramatically depending on the credibility of its source.
I will not attempt to unravel the tangle of knots tying evidence and proof, there are after all multi-volume treatises devoted to the subject, but will emphasize that if and when the applicant does not benefit from an INFERENCE of presence for days in Canada following a known date of entry, the burden of proving actual presence for at least EACH of 1095 days during the eligibility period (five years) can impose a rather high hurdle.
One way to tip the scales toward such elevated scrutiny and skepticism is to appear to be manipulating the Canadian system, such as being perceived to seek Canadian citizenship contrary to the purpose for which Canada offers naturalized citizenship.
So there is no intent requirement, but if the applicant is perceived to have an intent to manipulate and exploit the Canadian system, that can have a serious impact on how things go. Regarding which it warrants remembering appearance matters; consider, for example, how things are likely to go at the bank for someone seeking a home purchase loan who is suspected of perpetrating a fraud . . . the threshold for denying the loan is way below that necessary for charging a crime let alone a conviction.
TAXES . . .
It warrants noting and emphasizing that there is no tax-payment requirement for becoming a Canadian citizen. To qualify for a grant of citizenship the applicant must have complied with tax
FILING obligations for at least three of the five relevant tax years. For any of those five years the applicant was NOT obligated to file a Canadian tax return, pursuant to CRA rules, that year counts as a year in compliance with the filing obligations, and so it is entirely possible for a citizenship applicant to meet this requirement never having filed a Canadian tax return.
BUT . . . a big, BIG BUT . . .
That is about CRA law, CRA rules. And given the complexity of tax filing rules, and even greater complexity in tax payment rules, that is a specialty well off-subject here.
So, as to TAX QUESTIONS . . . this is
NOT a good place to get information let alone advice about filing or paying taxes in Canada. See the CRA website, and its information, and if there are still some questions . . . about tax filing obligations, or about paying taxes . . . see a qualified accountant or at least visit websites better suited to provide information about who must file a Canadian tax return, what sort of return, or about how tax obligations are calculated.
For example . . .
I think residency for the purpose of tax is decided considering various parameters. Sometime just number of days are not enough. It could based on where is your family live, do you own a property, primary bank account, etc... Just for example, his primary residence could be in US and staying in hotel/airbnb whenever visits Canada, in this case even if he has physical presence he may not be considered "tax resident".
This barely, and I mean barely, scratches the surface. Points in the right direction, noting that who must file a "
resident" tax return is itself complicated enough. But that hardly addresses who must file a Canadian tax return (under CRA rules) and comes no where close to addressing what tax payment obligations a person might have.
In contrast there are comments like this . . .
. . . one should file as deemed resident and pay taxes only for the days resided.
Again, even just the first part of this is itself too complicated to be adequately addressed here. Typically, under the tax treaty between the U.S. and Canada, a person qualifying to file a U.S. return as a resident of a U.S. state, and who does file as such, does not need to file a Canadian return as a "
resident." But there are enough exceptions to require individual analysis based on the specific person's details, again too complex to sort out here.
The second part appears highly questionable. At least in general terms there is no parsing of tax payment obligations based on days resident in Canada within a tax year the individual is a resident for tax filing purposes. No need to dive into that tangent here since what tax might be owed by a particular individual is NOT at all relevant to whether the individual meets the requirements for a grant of Canadian citizenship. See other more pertinent sources for this.
That said, overall a person with substantial ties to Canada primarily needs to research and determine whether or not Canada's tax laws requires that individual to file a Canadian tax return, and if yes, to determine whether to file a Resident return or a Non-resident Return. When the individual properly completes the respective tax filing, following the rules prescribed by CRA, that will dictate what tax is owed for what.
