What is the requirement to file FBAR?
- You have one or more Foreign Financial Accounts and the Total Value of all these accounts exceeded $10,000 USD at any time during the calendar year.
Who needs to file FBAR?
U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder
U.S. Resident
U.S. Resident means you are not a US citizen or green card holder but you lived in the U.S. enough days to meet the Substantial Presence Test
Lets go through some examples:
Example 1:
Bob is a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder and he lives and works in China. He has a Chinese bank account and the bank account balance increased to $13,000 USD before dropping down to $6,000 USD.
Bob has to file a U.S. Tax return because he is a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder. He also needs to file FBAR since the account value was more than $10,000 at any time during the year.
Example 2:
Bob moves back to USA and lives there for the rest of his life but keeps his Chinese Bank Account. The value of the bank account was more than $10,000 USD every year.
Bob has to file FBAR every year.
Example 3:
John is from Germany but he moved to U.S. to work for Facebook in November 2021. He is currently on a work visa. His German bank account has more than $40,000 USD.
For 2021, John does not need to file FBAR since he did not live in U.S long enough to qualify as U.S. Resident and he is not a US Citizen or Green Card Holder.
For 2022, If John lives in U.S. all year, He will need to file FBAR since he will be a U.S. Resident.
How do you know if your account balance was more than $10,000 USD at any time during the year?
Here is the link to How FinCen Values Foreign Account.
Take the highest value the account had and convert it to USD using the currency conversion rate on the last day of the Calendar Year.
How to File FBAR?
You can file it yourself at the US Treasury website after following the steps from this article OR
You can call us here at Moontree Tax Service, 408-475-2306. or fill out a contact form.
We can also answer any questions you might have about taxes. Just fill out a contact form with your questions.
Most Individual taxpayers’ questions can be answered by looking through our extensive blog post listings.
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