UK bank accounts and IRS
 

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience with this? This will be my first time filing in the US and it appears that you are supposed to inform the govt if you have $10k+ in any foreign bank account. I haven't sorted it out in the UK about not paying taxes there, so have had interest taken from my bank accounts there and paid to the IR. I notice that they want the account numbers etc, do they want to take tax too? if not what is the point of them having these details?

cheers

Re: UK bank accounts and IRS
 

Generally they want to know about these accounts to see if there is an excessive amount being 'stashed' there. If you report say $10,000 one year, and the next year, you have income of $100,000, yet report that your foreign bank account now has $200,000, they're going to start to wonder 'where did he get that extra money from?'

The IRS folks feel that amongst those who have tried to illegally evade taxes, offshore accounts is one method they employ.

Re: UK bank accounts and IRS
 

As a non UK resident you can apply to have the interest tax exempt...I don't pay UK tax on my UK investment accounts.

It is your legal obligation to disclose any overseas accounts that hold over $10K to the IRS.