Tax Year 2021 Foreign Account Reporting: Introduction | FBAR International Tax Lawyer

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Hello and welcome to Sherayzen Law Office Video blog. My name is Eugene Sherayzen and I’m an international tax attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd.

Today, I’m continuing my series of vlogs from Mexico City. I’m in the Colonia Reforma Social and I’m thinking about your upcoming tax year 2021 tax compliance. Right now, I’d like to focus, just on your foreign financial accounts. For the tax year 2021, you will need to file certain forms for your foreign accounts.

For example, if your accounts exceed $10,000, then you will have to file an FBAR; if your accounts exceed $100,000 and you reside in the United States, then you will have to file a Form 8938. If your foreign accounts contain PFICs (passive income), then you will have to file Forms 8621. In other words, having foreign financial accounts will result in a fairly substantial amount of US tax reporting requirements depending on the actual balances that you have on your foreign financial accounts. The lower you have, the lower the compliance you have. The higher the balances that you have on your bank and financial accounts, the more compliance you will have to do.

Now, keep in mind that you also need disclose the ownership of foreign accounts, irrespective of whether you have to file FBAR, Form 8938 or Form 8621 on Schedule B. You will have to indicate that you do not have to file an FBAR if you really do not have to do it.

In the next blog, I will continue talking about your 2021 FBAR compliance.

Thank you for watching, until the next time.

Preparing for the Tax Year 2021 Compliance | US International Tax Lawyer

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Good morning and welcome to Sherayzen Law Office video blog. My name is Eugene Sherayzen; I’m an international tax attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd.

I am continuing with a series of vlogs from Mexico City and today I’d like to talk about the upcoming tax season for the tax year 2021. The tax season started at the end of January 2022, and you might as well be preparing for it now, especially if you have foreign assets like foreign business ownership interests and foreign corporations, foreign partnerships or foreign disregarded entities, also if your have foreign financial accounts because you are looking at a significant amount of compliance, which has increased since the last year.

It’s not just a matter of doing the same thing that you have done in the past, it’s also a matter of taking into account the extra compliance that will come into play this year.

What you need to do right now is to start gathering all of the information for the calendar year 2021; put everything together: financial statements for the foreign corporations, financial statements for foreign trusts, if you are a beneficiary or owner of a foreign trust, financial statements for foreign partnerships, as well as things like fixed asset appreciation reports and things as simple as foreign bank account statements that will cover the entire year 2021.

In the next blog, I will continue talking more about your tax year 2021 tax compliance.

Thank you for watching, until the next time.

Form 8938 Does Not Replace FBAR Reporting | FBAR Tax Lawyer & Attorney

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Hello, and welcome to Sherayzen Law Office video Blog. My name is Eugene Sherayzen and I’m an international tax attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd.

Today, I’d like to talk to you about the situation where an account was disclosed on Form 8938 but it was not disclosed on FBAR or as it’s know by it’s official name, FinCEN Form 114.

Does your disclosure on Form 8938 replace the FBAR nondisclosure? That’s a question I often hear from taxpayers who come to me for help; and the answer is ‘no’. Unfortunately, just because you disclosed an account on Form 8938, that does not in any way eliminate your obligation to report the same account on Form 114 (or FBAR).

Will it help your non-willfulness case? Yes, it will but you still have to file your FBARs. You still have to disclose on your FBARs all of the foreign accounts you are required to disclose, otherwise you are on the hook for the penalties, even if they are not willful-type penalties; they may be non-willful penalties. It will depend on the particular facts and circumstances of your case.

If you would like to know more about your FBAR compliance, you can contact me (952) 500-8159 or you can email me at [email protected].

Thank you for watching, until the next time.