My husband is a green card holder. He got his green card on Dec 20, 2010. I recently filed our FBAR for 2011. However, it just dawned on me (agh!) that he should have filed one for 2010 because he was a green card holder for the last 11 days of 2010. We sold our house in England and he had a very big sum of money sitting in his bank account (not our joint one) when he became a green card holder.

Bearing in mind that we did disclose this money for the 2011 FBAR, does anyone have any suggestions on what we should do about him not doing his FBAR (or filing taxes for that matter for those 11 days!) for 2010?

The penalties could wipe us out! Is it worth bringing it to their attention? What are the chances they will see that he was a green card holder for those 11 days and should have filed both his taxes and FBAR?

I would file your 2010 husband's taxes and FBAR ASAP.

This is a very delicate area. I would consider filing the FBAR for 2010. I had never filed FBARs (born in US therefore US citizen but ahd lived my entire life from 6 months in the UK) and under professional advice filed under the voluntary disclosure programme when I first came to the US again in 2010. I too had sold a house and had a large sum of money sat in my account. In the end I was fined a paperwork fine of $500 per foriegn account per year that I hadn't filed (7 years as per the VDP 'rules'). However, I was on the VDP and once on it they had to fine me something.

If in your Husbands case this was only one account, even if they do flag it up, one would hope it would only be a paperwork fine.

If I were to have known what I know now, I probably would have just filed the previous years FBARs with the IRS.

Good luck!

I don't see there's any alternative to filing for 2010. If you had to file for the 11 days, then you HAVE TO FILE. You might hope that the IRS won't notice, but the longer you leave it the greater the fines will be if the IRS notices.

Thanks for all your suggestions. With the move and all the stuff that went along with it (two children under the age of four, my father just passed away, etc), it was the last thing I was thinking of. He earned no income in that time too.

I agree though, and think we'll just send it in and hope for the best.

True. In this case, since the OP's husband was only a US Citizen for 11 days I would think the best course of action would be to file it. I'm yet to believe the IRS have any way of tracking accounts that were owned by people that weren't flagged as US citizens however. They certainly knew nothing of me when I entered their system.

It is however a very backward system and does punish people for paperwork issues, even when they wouldn't have owed anything if they had filed.
The US tax system is one of the worst in the world in it's complexity and punishments for mistakes.

I do have a slightly biaised opinion on this though as I got fined when I don't believe I did anything wrong. I sought legal advice and was told that unfortunately it would cost me more to fight it than to pay it, so pay it I did, and resent the IRS I do!!

No argument from me. HMRC seem very sensible and efficient compared to the IRS. However, the IRS does have the ridiculous difficulty and complication of having to tax based on US citizenship as well as residency.

I agree. Never thought I'd say that!

You should be fine. Good luck.

1. Everyone is correct. There is an FBAR filing requirement.

2. The most important question is, did the money that you held in the account for that 11 day period earn any income? Follow up question, did you fail to report that income? If you answered yes to both questions, the answer is --- you have to use the OVDI program. (With an obvious opt-out) Note: There is nothing I see that stops an FBAR penalty of 0% being applied...I have a few cases I am arguing that right now.

If the money you put in to the account did not earn money (even though those proceeds include a taxable capital gain) again, you do not need to use the OVDI process.

BTW I post here not because I am a Brit Ex-pat (I hope I didn't break the rules), but rather I am American and I am absolute embarrassed by my country's shabby treatment of our closest cousins.

My apologies. And neither political party seems interested in sticking up for people who add so much value to our economy.

So when exactly do we have to file an FBAR with our taxes (we are preparing for a move back to UK)
Is it only on accounts with more that $10,000 so I could have multiple accounts of $9,999? or is it if you have more than $10,000 total in all accounts abroad?
Do you pay only on the interest earned on those accounts?
Anyone have a link to the rules that isn't lawyer speak?

You file FBAR if the sum of your foreign accounts that you have signature authority over goes above $10k. The difficulty is deciding which accounts are covered by FBAR and many people just include everything to be on the safe side.

It's the total of all foreign accounts.

I believe the filing deadline for FBAR is June 1. FBAR doesn't get filed with your taxes, it is sent separately to the Treasury Department... someplace in Detroit.

Ian

Just to be pedantic....it's the total of all foreign accounts, with the value of each separate foreign account determined by the maximum value that account reached at any point during the year. The FBAR must be in the possession of the Treasury on June 30. There is no extension of time.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/...148849,00.html

I can't promise you won't find some lawyer speak in there.