Steve_

Yes but those are ordinary reciprocal arrangements, information provided by request for example during a criminal investigation. Not the same thing as saying to a Canadian who has lived in Canada all their life, hey, you've got to start filing a US tax return because you were born in a US hospital.

It's more than just the banks, the govt. is concerned about forcing a large number of people to report to the IRS, it's not just technical issues, it's a sovereignty issue: http://business.financialpost.com/20...wns-in-canada/ This is a real concern in Canada because of the large number of people who are US citizens, which is larger than any other country, except maybe Mexico.

Basically at some point the US is going to have to face the music and adopt a tax system that works the same as every other country, i.e. you're only subject to taxes there if you live there or have income from there. I won't hold my breath though, it will be a long time coming.

The form 8854 requirement for example is widely ignored and unenforceable.

HollyHop

Just came across form 8938 in the middle of working on the taxes with TurboTax. A whole new tax hassle!!

The pension issue really isn't clear to me. OH and I both have frozen UK pensions but aren't taking distributions from them. We have found a value for his but can't get one for mine (it's an NHS pension and I've requested a quote but am told it takes at least 13 weeks to process this!!). Really not clear what to do here. On one hand it says you have to declare a value but then it also says if you don't know put 0.

Also someone else mentioned endowments. Apologies if I've missed the answer on this (just joined and catching up on this thread). We have an endowment policy (from an old extinct mortgage) that's due to pay out in a couple of years. Do I ned to declare a value for that?

nun

I think we need to remember that there are account thresholds for filing FATCA. For US residents it's $50k if you're single and $100k if you're married. It sounds as if many here have small accounts that won't merit FATCA reporting. Of course if you don't know how much they are worth what do you do?

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8938.pdf

My attitude is to put everything on FATCA even if it's a balance on an old Oyster card. The IRS asked for this information so let's give it to them to show them the stupidity of FATCA.

robin1234

Plus, as far as I know, we have a lot of leeway in the design of the "continuation sheet." If they'd wanted it to conform to a certain format, they would have designed it themselves! Say no more.

ian-mstm

Alas, the IRS won't see it this way. They'll gather the information... and in their report to the Treasury Department, they'll simply note that there was a tremendous response from the people with respect to FACTA and so the practice should be continued in the future.

Ian

nun

Well FBAR seems to be pretty backed up at the IRS and I bet FATCA is too. It seems that the IRS wasn't really staffed to deal with the new enforcement and forms.

http://hodgen.com/fbars-and-delays-in-detroit/

Giantaxe

With Form 8938 seemingly a superset of the FBAR form - the "new" thing on the former is that you have to match accounts to income on your return - I wonder whether the latter will bite the dust at some point? It's truly insane to have to submit such overlapping information on two different forms to two different entities.

theOAP

Based on previous questions, and because people don't know what to report or where to report it, will any of that vast amount of data be worth a damn? What you're saying is that quantity is favorable to quality. If so, I think you may be right.

theOAP

But looking at it from the Treasury point of view, there are penalties for both. So, forget one account on both forms and pay for it twice in penalties. Give up all that revenue by getting rid of one of the reports! I wouldn't be surprised if some bright spark in Treasury weren't looking for a 3rd duplicate form as we speak.

(Bit of a cynical mood tonight).

dinosaur

Just a quick detail from the form:

So seems there's a $50K distinction between the max amount at any time in the past year and the amount at the end of the year (or $25K if single).

celticgrid

I would agree that quantity will be seen as preferable to quality. That's the way such things work. With quantity, their published statistics will look phenomenal.

Additionally, while there is very little ability for the IRS to check the quality of the data they receive, it is in their interests, for those cases (audits?) where they do check quality, for it to be poor. Poor quality = more fines.

rew1000

Couldn't see this in the thread so far: TurboTax Online doesn't support Form 8938 this year.

"You're receiving this email in response to signing up on a TurboTax support article regarding not being able to enter Form 8938 in TurboTax Online.
We are continuing to work to improve this area, but unfortunately the issue will not be resolved for 2011. The Desktop version of TurboTax must be used to enter a Form 8938 in your 2011 return."

This led me to try the desktop version for the first time, and actually it has some nice features compared to the online version, so I might be converted. The transfer from online to desktop was simple. E-file accepted, so fingers crossed...

jjmb

I hate doing taxes over here, even the most simple straight forward, seems fraught with doubt. Never had this issue in the UK, even being in the higher tax bracket.

Last year we did our own but reading this thread think I need to go back to the tax accountant. Knew we would have to do the FBAR as have a couple of bank accounts still in the UK plus an inheritance but now we are meant to declare pensions and endowments that don't even pay out for several years. Come on! Just hope the tax accountant knows what this is all about because it certainly seems to be confusing people here.

Giantaxe

I wonder whether someone will challenge these duplicated fines as double jeopardy?

penguinbar

You should contact Pete Newton if you need an accountant who is well vered in both US and UK taxes. I found him on here and he's done my and my husbands taxes the past few years. Just met with him the other week.
www.britishexpatstax.com