Inlandoct2014 said:
When they ask for the SIN number, doesn't mean that they can have direct access to whatever we filed?
There have been extensive changes made to the laws and rules governing information sharing, especially as to information sharing between different government bodies or departments. I am not that much familiar with the particular details within the sphere of public information, and the sphere of public information is limited since the laws allow for additional regulation and rules facilitating information sharing for investigatory purposes which are largely confidential, as in not within the sphere of public information.
There is probably a huge difference between what an IRCC officer typically, routinely does access versus
what CAN be accessed.
Ultimately, of course, the scope of what
CAN be accessed is huge, depending on what cause there is supporting justification for an investigation on that scale. Ultimately, if for example an investigation into misrepresentation is deemed warranted, the scope of inquiry and examination can become essentially the equivalent of a criminal investigation into fraud. Whether that is driven by the IRCC, or CRA, or RCMP, probably depends more on what sort of fraud is suspected and being investigated. But, obviously, if in the course of examining an individual the government discovers reason to suspect fraud, be that residency fraud or immigration fraud or tax evasion or whatever, appropriate warrants for records can be obtained and an individual's government records examined thoroughly.
That would be unusual. But when the question is about what
CAN a government body do, that is well within the scope of what
CAN be done.
Routine information sharing:
Again, the laws and regulations and rules governing information sharing have changed considerably in the last two to five years, and I am not that familiar with the details about how these things work now.
My sense is that the SIN enables IRCC to verify the applicant's declarations about years in which the applicant filed a tax return in Canada. That is, that IRCC can verify that the applicant did file a tax return for those years which the applicant declares he or she was required to file a return and did file a return.
My further sense is that IRCC can share some information with CRA which would allow CRA to compare its records with the information from IRCC. I do not know either the nature or scope of what information is involved. I suspect this is more or less about alerting CRA to applicants who may have failed to file required returns or who have failed to report income from outside Canada. But this is merely what I suspect. I do not know.
Applicants who are issued the CIT 0520 request for additional information may be asked to submit tax related information like Notices of Assessment and T4s and such, and those issued the full blown RQ, CIT 0171, will typically be asked to submit copies of these. Obviously, whether IRCC and CRA will routinely directly compare such records or not, they
CAN and at least in some cases are very likely to do that.
One of the reasons given (in explaining the need for the legislation which added the tax related requirements for citizenship) for implementing the tax related requirements and information sharing changes, was a claim that some applicants were submitting fraudulent T4s or Notices of Assessment, and IRCC needed the capability of verifying this information directly. But again, how the changes specifically facilitate this, I do not know. I just know that was one of the objectives.
Overall: My sense is that the best approach is to assume that every branch of government can, at the least, verify information obtained and kept by any other branch of government. This is not to say one can assume a given branch of government will know what another branch of government knows. On the contrary, they usually do not, and thus a person cannot count on IRCC knowing what another branch of government knows. But it is also likely it would be relatively easy for IRCC to find out what another branch of government knows, if someone at IRCC decides that information is relevant and needs to be considered. There are rules governing this. There are protocols for making the inquiries. But much of that is probably reduced to electronic processing, such that if an IRCC officer has justification for accessing information beyond the scope of what is routinely accessible, access is nonetheless still at the officer's fingertips in the sense the officer can enter the codes and justifications into the system and effectively get authorization to proceed and access information beyond that routinely accessible.
Basically: assume an IRCC officer can find out whatever another branch knows, but if it is something which will help your case, assume you need to bring that information to the officer's attention.
