Don’t wait any longer if you have a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report (“FBAR”) filing requirement. The deadline to file your FBAR, FinCEN Report 114, with the IRS is June 30, 2016. The IRS does not allow extensions, so you must meet this deadline to avoid penalties. The FBAR’s must now be filed electronically via FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing System, no paper copies are accepted.
Any person that holds financial interest in or has signature authority over bank account, brokerage account, mutual fund, trust, or other foreign financial account is required to file if the aggregate value of your foreign accounts are more than $10,000 at any time during the year. Even if your accounts are not generating yearly income, you still might have a reporting requirement. If you are not sure if you have a filing requirement and are not sure if the accounts that you hold fall under the above categories, please contact us at LSL CPAs and we can help you determine what type of accounts you have and if you have a filing requirement. We will help you gather all proper documents and then make sure you are in compliance by filing your FinCEN Report 114 electronically.
If you have a foreign account that you may have forgotten or did not know existed until recently, it is important to bring it up with your CPA to discuss your options. You may have accounts where you have reported the income from these accounts on your prior year income tax returns, but you have not filed the FBAR. In this case the IRS will not penalize you for a failure to file a delinquent FBAR if the taxes have been paid on the income. It is always best to “come clean” and file the prior year FBAR returns.
Changes to 2016 FBAR Filing Due Date
Please note that for the 2016 reporting year the new filing due date for FinCEN Report 114 will be April 15, 2017. However, the IRS will allow a 6-month extension period which would extend the filing due date to October 15, 2017, same as your income tax returns. The IRS is also giving first-time filers relief by waving penalties for missing the extension deadline and failing to request extension to file the FBAR. The returns will still be required to be filed electronically, only the due dates are changing.
For more information contact your LSL Advisor.
Author: Petra Kess
