Saturday, June 6, 2015

WARNING New Rules for US Taxpayers with Offshore Accounts

All U.S. taxpayers with offshore accounts totaling more than $10,000 in 2014—regardless of where they live—have until June 30 to file FinCen Form 114, known as Fbar, a report giving details of the accounts.

WSJ reports:
For decades, the rules on offshore accounts weren’t enforced. That changed in 2009...

Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, in 2010. This ambitious provision requires foreign financial institutions to turn over information about U.S. account holders so that the IRS can track taxpayer compliance.

More than 165,000 foreign firms have signed up to comply, because if they don’t, they risk severe consequences affecting all account holders. This is the first year they are turning over information, so some U.S. taxpayers with undeclared foreign accounts now could be “outed”—even if they weren’t intentionally disobeying the law or even aware of it...

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