Godzilla9 said:
While PR in Canada, I was overseas in Country A for three months. After two months of being there (was not working in either Canada or country A), I traveled to Country B and C, returned back to Country A for two weeks and then back to Canada. Two questions:
1. Do I indicate all these countries in Residence calculator, or I only say 3 months in Country A?
2. For addresses, do I put my address in Country A for those three months, or continue having Canadian address, considering that I reported that time in my tax return as primary residence in Canada?
For the physical presence calculation: Read and follow the instructions.
Without revisiting the Presence Calculator again, the instructions have, for a long time (including those for the Residency Calculator version previously) instructed applicants to report all trips by declaring the date of exit and then next date of entry into Canada,
and to identify additional countries visited during that trip in the box for explaining reasons for the trip.
For address history in application form itself:
Depending on the actual facts, this could be more of a judgment call, although if the time abroad was much longer that would tip the scales more definitively toward reporting the address abroad in the address history.
IRCC tends to examine places of residence on a month to month basis.
That said, three months may be a short enough absence to report your Canadian address in the address history, but only if you did indeed maintain that address as your primary residence in Canada during your absence from Canada (thus a place you owned or a place you continued to pay rent to occupy even though you were abroad for those months), and you adequately provide information in the physical presence calculator, including as to your location abroad during those the months abroad.
But again, how you handle this in the address history is a judgment call if you were physically living somewhere else for a month or more, since where you are actually living in any given month would generally be the address to list in the address history for those respective months. (Many fudge this, I am sure, most without problem, but just because that is what many have done without a problem really is only a small factor to consider: best approach is to simply respond to all items with the most complete and accurate answer you genuinely believes answers the question.)
Reason for the trip is a factor to consider. Nature of occupancy where you were staying abroad is a factor to consider. Total duration in address abroad is a factor. Three months is in a kind of
in-between space, but again that can depend on things like the reason for the absence/trip (for example, for a University professor who would routinely have a three-month break between sessions, who is abroad for three months total but that is split between a temporary stint in one location and a holiday in another, and who owns a home in Canada, easy call to stay with the Canadian home address in the address history, just making sure to adequately list countries visited during the absence in the presence calculation; in contrast, someone whose employment would typically not include a holiday for as long as three months, and who in practice moves out of his home in Canada while going abroad and then moves into a different address when returning to Canada, should probably report month-to-month addresses in address history based on where he was actually living each of those months.)
Remember, you can add a supplemental page to make explanations or to include information for which there was not enough space.
