Opening an account, which ID is needed? | Page 4 | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Very true, Loonie, never rely fully on anecdotal evidence for important issues like this.

However, your 2nd sentence needs to be augmented, it's more nuanced than you indicate. It CAN be considered to be a significant (i.e. not determinative) indicator. If you go to the actual Income Tax Folio S5-F1-C1, you will find quite a lot of info on this and it makes clear it's always on a basis that looks at a number of factors, not just ownership of property.

For example, the Folio indicates "if an individual leases a dwelling place located in Canada to a third party on arm's-length terms and conditions, the CRA will take into account all of the circumstances of the situation (including the relationship between the individual and the third party, the real estate market at the time of the individual's departure from Canada, and the purpose of the stay abroad), and may consider the dwelling place not to be a significant residential tie with Canada........" In another case I'm familiar with the newly non-resident entered into a lease agreement with a colleague, i.e. arm's length party, for the colleague to be a lessee of the non-resident's former principal residence. In this way the non-resident no longer has a "home" (residence) in Canada, though they retain ownership of it.

But, yes, please do your own research on this, a comment on a forum like this is just a starting point.

I see that my link, although valid, doesn't work.
Try this earlier page instead, and click on "Residency status" https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/international-non-residents/individuals-leaving-entering-canada-non-residents/non-residents-canada.html

It states:
"You are a non-resident for tax purposes if you:
normally, customarily, or routinely live in another country and are not considered a resident of Canada; or
do not have significant residential ties in Canada; and
you live outside Canada throughout the tax year; or
you stay in Canada for less than 183 days in the tax year."

If you then click on "Residential ties", you get this:
"Significant residential ties to Canada include:
a home in Canada;
a spouse or common-law partner in Canada; and
dependants in Canada;"

I never said Cdn home ownership was determinative; merely that CRA considers it "significant". It would therefore require adjudication, and, as Doug said, CRA has a lot of discretion, probably too much.
Given CRA's mandate as a tax collector, i wouldn't be surprised if the onus was on the citizen to prove that the home was not a determinative factor.

As far as I know, nobody here is planning on doing this. I just wanted to warn any lurkers that they would need to look into the details.

Doug, you say "That's the problem with the Canadian tax code - the CRA seems to have too much discretionary authority. It should be cut and dry and, if a CRA telephone agent gives you advice by phone and you record the conversation, that advice should trump the legislation on a case-by-case basis - even if that agent erred."

I'm not sure CRA has discretionary authority, they have the job of administering the legislation. For that, they have to, in conjunction with court decisions, come up with standard interpretations that apply to everyone.

Your proposal that a conversation with a civil servant should trump the democratically enacted laws of the land is revolutionary, and would result at a minimum in a complete lack of uniformity (e.g. what about the people who got the opposite, correct advice?) and probably taxation chaos.

P.S. Canada doesn't have a tax "code".

Norman1, your 3 house scenario - again, CRA would look at all the relevant factors to determine residency. The value of the houses would be a relatively minor factor, I would think, in determining residency - doesn't have to be in your principal residence, though a principal residence elsewhere MIGHT suggest you are using the Canadian property as a place of lodging vs of residence (another distinction not mentioned so far here) but if you established/maintained the normal residential ties of a Canadian resident during the two months in Toronto I could see that CRA might say you're a resident of Canada that year. Note that if a Canadian citizen is resident in Canada at any time in a year then you are a Canadian taxpayer for that year.

Complexity in certain tax areas is unavoidable, it's not possible to make every situation that arises, with all the factors involved, clear in an easy, quick way. That's just reality. What did the legislators intend with the wording "An income tax shall be paid, as required by this Act, on the taxable income for each taxation year of every person resident in Canada at any time in the year" (note the absence of the word "citizen") is one of those areas that for 99% of us might be clear but there are those other situations. And CRA uses its best efforts to figure it out in every case that comes up over the decades, then there is the Appeals process within CRA, then there is Tax Court and so on, so that over time creates a body of rulings and decisions that support the guidelines CRA uses every day. New court decisions work to change the guidelines over time as CRA is bound to follow current judicial interpretation. That's how it works.
And there's no need to wait, you can move any time you want. If the published guidelines are unclear in a particular case, maybe that person should get their ducks with CRA in order, with or without professional help, before they make their move - if they want to play it safe.

As far as I know there is no guarantee on how long a ruling can take. Interestingly, though CRA will normally honour a "binding" ruling even if later shown to be incorrect, the courts have always reminded the parties that the law trumps everything, i.e. an incorrect ruling can always be overridden by the courts, which are bound to uphold the law above all. I've read cases (it's a interest of mine) where the judge says I don't care about CRA's decades-long interpretation, I'm reading the Act and this is what it clearly says to me.

The legislation which I cited above is very clear, i.e. income tax applies to residents of Canada. The complexity arises in real life where you have, given the numerous factors that go into "resident", an endless combination of possibilities depending on the facts in each case. I think if someone reads and digests the 57 paragraphs in the Folio I'm betting 99% of the situations out there would be covered by the Folio - though it's always possible for unique situations not seen before to arise, generally everyone will fall into something that's been dealt with before. If a close reading of the Folio leaves you still unsure professional advice might help, sounds like your situation might be a new one.

Bill said
I'm not sure CRA has discretionary authority, they have the job of administering the legislation. For that, they have to, in conjunction with court decisions, come up with standard interpretations that apply to everyone.

But they don't, as far as I can tell. Moreover, they write the wording of their interpretative bulletins, webpage content, and the like as intentionally vague, to try and retroactively snare someone.

Your proposal that a conversation with a civil servant should trump the democratically enacted laws of the land is revolutionary, and would result at a minimum in a complete lack of uniformity (e.g. what about the people who got the opposite, correct advice?) and probably taxation chaos.

That's a bullshit argument, with all due respect. We have come to expect this from the private sector, from our banks, credit unions, and retailers, with vague return policies or other company policies, why should the civil service not be held accountable for the misinformation they provide? They're certainly well compensated for their incompetence.

P.S. Canada doesn't have a tax "code". 

Bill, with respect, that's hair-splitting. While the legal name of the actual Act is the Income Tax Act, there are a number of other Acts, Regulations, and CRA Interpretation Bulletins that, collectively, form what could be consider the "income tax code." Government even refers to it in this way. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

I sure am glad I don't have to deal with this personally!

Loonie said
I sure am glad I don't have to deal with this personally!  

LOL, me too. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

Somehow, the more you try to tell us how fair and clear it all is, the murkier it seems.

Gov't CSRs are not held responsible when they give out the wrong information on the phone - which they do fairly frequently. This was amply demonstrated in an investigative journalism report a year or two ago. The reason the issue came to the attention of said journalists is because that was what people were experiencing.
Since people, organizations and businesses make important decisions based on the answers to those questions, then, yes, the answers should be reliable and the gov't should be bound by them even if there is a discrepancy with the law. Otherwise, why do we employ people to give answers? And if the the law and the CSR differ, then, yes, you should be given the better of the two deals. By that time, you, the taxpayer, have already had enough grief from these people.

There is no reason why more detailed information can't be available online. I have noticed a distinct dumbing down of available information on federal govt websites in recent years. I am not sure when it all occurred, but appears to have been under Harper, and is being continued by Trudeau. The point of most of them seems to be more in the framework of advertising than informing.

I have run into this 3 times in the last year or two - with Library and Archives Canada, DVA, and CPP. The info I need is no longer there, and I am having to find workarounds in order to get it. No excuse for this. I don't want to even call Service Canada because their answers are so unreliable. I have gotten different answers to the same question from different CSRs more than once.
You can call this competence if you want, but I don't.