Do I file Form 14653 even if no tax is owed?
Catch-up or disclosure filing obligations of this kind are generally required on the facts rather than on the tax result, so a nil position does not remove one. US persons living abroad who are behind on returns and foreign-account reports and whose failure to file was not willful.
What happens if I have missed Form 14653 for several years?
Missed years are dealt with as a package rather than one at a time, because the route chosen for the first year affects the relief available for the rest. We map the years and the obligations before anything is filed.
Is Form 14653 the same as the other reports I already file?
No. The non-willfulness certification that accompanies the streamlined foreign offshore submission for filers resident outside the United States. Satisfying a different obligation, even one covering the same accounts or entity, does nothing for this one.
Do I qualify for the streamlined foreign offshore programme?
Two things decide it. You have to meet the residence condition that makes you a filer living outside the United States for the relevant years, and your failure to file has to have been non-willful. Neither is a matter of preference. Residence is tested year by year on your actual movements and where your home was, and non-willfulness is judged on the facts your records show. Work both out before drafting anything, because the certification asks you to state your eligibility under penalty of perjury and the whole submission stands or falls on it.
What do I actually write in the non-willfulness statement?
You write what happened, in your own facts. How you came to be living abroad, what you understood about your filing obligations and why, who advised you and what you told them, when you learned the true position and what you did next. It has to be specific: the moves, the jobs, the conversation with a bank or an accountant that brought it to light. A general assertion that you did not know is not the point. The narrative is the submission, and it has to be consistent with every return and account report filed alongside it.
Can I use streamlined if the IRS has already contacted me?
That is usually the end of this route. The programme is for filers who come forward on their own initiative, and a submission drafted after the IRS has opened an examination or an enquiry into the years in question is not a voluntary coming forward. Making the certification in those circumstances turns a relief application into something worse: a signed narrative handed to an examiner who is already looking at you. If you have received anything from the IRS, stop and take advice on which routes remain before you file anything at all.
Does the submission cover my foreign accounts as well as my returns?
Yes, the programme is built around the pair. The returns for the required years and the foreign account reports for the corresponding period go in together with the certification, and the certification covers both. That is why the drafting comes last. Assemble the account records first, work out what was held where and when, prepare the returns and the reports from that material, and only then write the statement that explains it. A narrative written before the documents are known is a narrative the documents will eventually contradict.
I never knew Americans abroad had to file, so is that non-willful?
It can be, and frequently is, but it is not a conclusion you simply assert. It is one your facts have to support. What matters is whether your conduct is consistent with someone who genuinely did not know: what you told the professionals who prepared your local returns, how you answered any question about foreign accounts on a form you signed, whether something put you on notice and was left alone. Where the history contains something awkward, it is far better set out in the narrative than discovered afterwards.
What happens if my certification does not match my filed returns?
It is the single most damaging thing in a submission. The narrative is read against the returns and the account reports, and a statement saying one thing while the filings show another invites exactly the examination the programme exists to avoid. The common mismatches are a date of first knowledge falling after an account was closed, income described as trivial on a return that shows otherwise, and accounts mentioned in the story but missing from the reports. Reconcile the narrative to the documents before signing, not after the submission has gone in.
How does a non-resident file a tax return?
On the non-resident form for that country, reporting only the income that country may tax. In the US that is the 1040-NR; in Canada it is a T1 restricted to Canadian-source amounts, plus the elective returns under sections 216 and 217 where withholding on rent or pension income exceeded the real tax. The commonest error is filing the resident form by default and reporting worldwide income to a country with no right to it. See Form 1040-NR.
How many days can I spend in a country before I become tax resident?
It depends on the country, and a day count is only ever the start. Many use a threshold in a tax year, some also look at averages across several years, and some have no day test at all and decide on where your home and life are. Two countries can both conclude you are resident, which is what the treaty tie-breaker exists to settle. Counting days without checking the tie-breaker is how people end up filing as resident nowhere. See the residency tie-breaker.
