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Foreign account reporting amnesty deadline extended to June 2010 for some 2008 filers
August 10, 2009
One of the worst aspects of the foreign financial account reporting ("FBAR") rules is the way it applies to people who can sign checks for their employers, but who don't own the accounts. This means a payables administrator who pays bills for a Canadian branch of a U.S. company can be fined half the value of a bank account that she doesn't even own if she fails to file Form 90-22.1.
The unfairness of this may be sinking in at the Treasury. They have extended the deadline (Notice 2009-62) for signature-only FBAR filers to June 30, 2010:
In light of the additional time needed for the Department of the Treasury to address issues pertaining to FBAR filing requirements and the need to provide administrative relief for (i) persons with signature authority over, but no financial interest in, a foreign financial account, and (ii) persons with a financial interest in, or signature authority over, a foreign commingled fund, this Notice provides that those persons have until June 30, 2010, to file an FBAR for the 2008 and earlier calendar years with respect to these foreign financial accounts. Thus, eligible persons that avail themselves of the administrative relief provided in this Notice may need to file FBARs for the 2008, 2009 and earlier calendar years on or before June 30, 2010, to the extent provided in future guidance.
This seems to say the IRS may scale back the reporting requirements for some of these filers.
The deadline remains September 23 for other filers wanting to take advantage of the IRS foreign account reporting amnesty.
More coverage:
TaxProf Blog
Federal Tax Crimes Blog
IRS FAQ on voluntary foreign account disclosure.
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Comments
What is the position where you are a US citizen married to a non-US citizen spouse and residing outside the US and an employee of a legitimate foreign business in which you have the authority to write checks on office accounts but do not have access to the business' bank statements and in fact do not know the total that is in the account. Also, to make it worse once you tell the employer that because they were unfortunate enough to hire you, an American citizen, they now need to disclose to you the account balances so you can report this to foreign tax authorities (the IRS), they refuse. Can you blame them though? Good luck other americans looking for any executive jobs outside the USA! This is ridiculous. Why does the IRS treat citizens abroad like this? Clearly we cannot use US bank accounts to pay our salaries in and pay our bills, etc.
Posted by: Kevin Burke | October 12, 2009 5:17 PM