Can I just file a late FBAR without entering a programme?
Sometimes, and the conditions are narrow. The route contemplates a late account report filed with a reasonable-cause statement, where the income from the accounts was reported on your returns and no examination is under way. If any one of those three is untrue — income left off, an enquiry already open, or no reasonable cause you can actually evidence — you are not in this route and should not file as though you were. Establishing which of the three applies is the first piece of work, and it is done from documents rather than recollection.
What counts as reasonable cause for a late account report?
A statement of what happened, in dates, that explains the failure without contradicting anything in your filings. It is not a form of words. What carries weight is the specific sequence: when the account was opened and why, what you understood at the time, who told you what, when you learned otherwise, and what you did next. Generic assertions about being unaware do little on their own. Where reliance on an adviser is part of the account, it is described as it happened, with whatever correspondence survives, and the gaps are acknowledged rather than smoothed over.
Where does the FBAR actually get filed?
It goes to FinCEN. It is not attached to your tax return and it does not travel with it, which is precisely why the two get out of step: someone who has filed returns faithfully every year can still have never filed an account report at all. Treating them as one exercise is the common mistake, because the filing that turns out to be missing is the one nobody was tracking. It is worth checking the report history separately, year by year, rather than assuming the return history answers for both.
My accounts are small — do I still have to report them?
The test is not whether any single account is large. It is the aggregate value of all your foreign financial accounts, measured at any point during the calendar year rather than on the last day of it. That has two consequences people miss: a set of modest accounts can cross the line together, and a balance that was high for one week counts even if the account was nearly empty in December. Money moved between two of your own accounts can be counted in both. List every account first, then test the aggregate.
I reported the interest but never filed the reports — is that better?
It is materially better, because the route for a late report assumes the income was on the returns. It is also the position that allows the smallest fix: the missing filings are the reports themselves, with a statement explaining why they were late, rather than a reopening of the returns. Establish it properly, though. Reported means the income appears in the right place for each year, which is worth checking account by account before anything is filed, because a single omitted account changes which route you are in.
What if the IRS has already asked me about a foreign account?
Then this route is likely closed, and the first task is reading what has arrived rather than filing. The position depends on no examination being under way, so a notice can be the event that ends it. Bring the correspondence in date order, together with anything a bank has sent you about your tax residence or your accounts. What the letter asks for usually decides what is still available, and filing into a route that has already closed makes the position worse rather than better.
Do I pay US tax on an inheritance from abroad?
A bequest is not income, so the receipt itself is not taxed. Reporting is a different matter: a US person who receives large gifts or bequests from a foreign person or estate files an information return for the year, and inheriting a foreign account or an interest in a foreign trust brings the account and asset reports with it. The penalties here attach to the information return, not to tax — which is why people who owed nothing still get letters. See Form 3520.
Do American citizens living abroad have to pay taxes?
American expats and green card holders need to file US returns for life, and many of them pay little or no US tax once the relief is applied — but the filing is what unlocks the relief, so the two questions have different answers. The exclusion for foreign earned income, the credit for foreign tax already paid and the treaty between the two countries between them usually leave the total at roughly the higher of the two countries' tax rather than the sum. Skip the return and none of it applies. See Americans abroad.
