Do I still qualify if I own a house in the United States?
Owning property there is not the same as having a United States abode, and the test asks about the abode rather than the deed. It is applied to each year in the window on its own facts, alongside the days spent outside the country, and one qualifying year in that window is enough — so a house that is let out does not settle the question either way. Residence is what selects which of the two streamlined programmes you are in, so we work it out year by year before anything is signed.
The IRS has already written to me. Is streamlined still open?
It depends what the letter is. The route stays open only while the approach is still yours to make first, and an open examination closes the streamlined procedures whatever the other facts are. Not every notice opens one: some query a single line on a return that was filed. So the first task is to establish what has actually been opened, and against which years, before a certification is drafted. Where the door is shut other routes remain, and they are a different conversation.
How many years of returns and account reports does this need?
The number of years is set by the procedures rather than chosen, and the account reports reach further back than the returns — so the oldest records are usually the ones that decide how long the work takes. Both windows are counted back from filing due dates that have already passed, which means the list of years depends on when the submission goes in rather than on how far behind you are. You get that list, and the fixed fee for it in writing, before preparation starts.
Does streamlined wipe out the tax and the interest too?
No. What it turns off, for those who qualify, is the offshore penalty position; the tax on the income and the interest on it stay payable. What usually reduces the tax is relief that was never claimed — the exclusion reaches earned income only, and the credit for foreign tax already paid is worked out separately for each category of income. So a filer whose income was wages abroad and one whose income was dividends can end up in very different places on the same set of years.
Is it safer to just file the missing years quietly?
No. Filing back or amended returns through the ordinary channel and saying nothing gives up the certification-based penalty protection while drawing attention to exactly the years in question, and it can be read as an indicator of willfulness rather than as a correction. Once it is done, eligibility to enter a programme for those years may be gone. It is the one route that costs the relief and keeps the exposure. See why quiet disclosure is the wrong route.
What if I knew I was supposed to be filing?
Then say so before anything is drafted, because it changes the route rather than the wording. Non-willfulness covers negligence, inadvertence, a mistake or a good-faith misunderstanding of the law; it does not cover a decision not to report. The certification is a signed statement to the IRS, so using this route where the conduct was not non-willful is worse than not using it. The disclosure practice exists for that case: it addresses criminal exposure instead of granting penalty relief, and the analysis belongs with counsel before anything is filed.
What is the penalty for a late T1135 or a missed FBAR?
Both are penalty regimes attached to the form rather than to any tax, which is why people who owed nothing still face them. The Canadian foreign property statement carries a per-month penalty with much larger amounts for a failure that continues or is made knowingly; the US account report is separate again and pivots on whether the failure was wilful. Relief exists — voluntary disclosure, reasonable cause, taxpayer relief — and it narrows once the authority makes contact. The reporting trigger on the US side is an aggregate balance over $10,000 at any point in the year. See late T1135 penalty relief.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
