Filing FBAR for Foreign investments for new LPR

[christeen 966]

Here is my question... My husband entered the US on and IR1 in November. He has accounts in his home country of Italy which, now that he is a LPR and has a SSN, I understand we must file the FBAR to delcare these assets..

From what I have read, he must file before JUNE of the Following year to avoid being penalized... If anybody knows, does that mean that we need to file by June 2010 for 2009 (he meets the requiremetns for physical presence and foreign income exclusion) or June 2011 for the year 2010??? FYI, we do pay taxes in Italy on the investment income.

We have not filed before as I was not on the accounts and he did not have status here or a SSN... This is our first year. We are using the foreign income exclusion for the money he earned abroad in 2009...

Any help would be appreciated...

[christeen 966]

anybody???

[HikerMark 5]

Yes, the first filing will be for 2009 and needs to be filed by June 2010.

For example I moved to the US in November 2008 and filed for 2008 by June 2009.

Remember that for accounts that you own you only need to report if the total of all the foreign accounts exceeds $10,000.

[christeen 966]

Thanks so much... Any idea how the taxes are affected by filing the FBAR or are they totally seperate things??

[xd-data-ii 0]

Yes, the first filing will be for 2009 and needs to be filed by June 2010.

For example I moved to the US in November 2008 and filed for 2008 by June 2009.

Remember that for accounts that you own you only need to report if the total of all the foreign accounts exceeds $10,000.

$10,000 between all accounts!!! That aint much at all.

Do we need to report each account then if they all add up to more than $10,000?

And by reporting them is it just for them to keep track of us or will it mean we will have to pay money here as a result?

[HikerMark 5]

Long time to reply but I have just done my 2009 FBAR and remembered that this topic had been discussed before.

You need to file this return on form TD F 90-22.1, which is available on the IRS web site, by June 30 each year. So, the 2009 report needs to be filed by June 30, 2010.

The report needs to be filed if the total of all your overseas bank accounts, brokerage accounts, mutual funds etc exceeds $10000 at any time in the year. So, yes it is not very much in total for all the overseas accounts. If the total of all the accounts is $10001 or more than you need to report each individual account.

The IRS and the government use the information on the report to see if you are declaring all the income that you should be on your US tax returns. Merely filing the FBAR report does not lead to any extra tax or other payments unless the IRS spots that you have declared significant overseas assets on which there does not appear to be any income on your US tax return. If that is the case then the IRS may audit the US tax return.

$10,000 between all accounts!!! That aint much at all.

Do we need to report each account then if they all add up to more than $10,000?

And by reporting them is it just for them to keep track of us or will it mean we will have to pay money here as a result?