 Internal Revenue Service IRS Tax News. IRS Reminds Holders of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts of the April Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Deadline. That's the F-bar deadline. Not to be confused with Fubar, we're talking F-bar here, totally different thing. But first, an attempt at a joke, I apologize in advance. I was happy to hear the country finally woke up until I realized we were talking about a different kind of woke. My expectations have been subverted again. Honestly, what's the point of even making expectations these days? They're trying to subvert even the strongest expectations. For example, I generally expect the sun to rise tomorrow. But with the massive geopolitical missteps, nuclear weapons in the balance, it seems they may even manage to subvert that expectation. Why can't we just have a nice story where everybody ends up living happily ever after as everyone expects them to? At least I can rely on the expectation that my trusty listeners will be here for me. Hey, why do you keep on looking at that colorful thumbnail? Wait, don't click on... I R-2022-73, March 31, 2022, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service today reminds US citizens, resident aliens and any domestic legal entity that the deadline to file their annual report of foreign bank and financial accounts. The F-BAR is April 15. For additional information about filing deadlines, filers should look to Financial Crimes Enforcement Networks, the FN-CEN website. There's a link to that here for further information. Filers missing the April deadline will receive an automatic extension until October 15, 2022 to file the F-BAR. So if you don't get the F-BAR filed by April 15, it might not be completely foobard at that point in time because you might have the extension until October 15, 2022. So they don't need to request an extension. See the F-I-N-C-E-N's website for further information. There's a link to that here. Who must file an F-BAR, F-B-A-R? The Bank Security Act requires US persons to file an F-BAR if they have one financial interest in signature authority or other authority over one or more accounts such as bank accounts, brokerage accounts, a mutual fund, or other financial accounts in a foreign country and, too, the aggregate value of all foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. The government's like, we want to know about that. That gets significant for us. We got to know about that. So because of this threshold, the US encouraged US persons or entities with foreign accounts, even relatively small ones, to check if this filing requirement applies to them. That, of course, is what we're reminding you of at this point. So US person is a citizen or resident of the United States or any domestic legal entity such as a partnership corporation limited liability company, a state or trust. The F-BAR must be filed electronically with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Networks, the FEN-C-E-N, and is only available through the BSA e-filing system website. Taxpayers who are unable to e-file the F-BAR must contact FEN-C-E-N at, there's a couple numbers here. I won't read them because there'll be a description to this in or there'll be a link to this in the description so you can check it out. And then, and there's also an email address that will be in here in the description. Check out the description. Penalties for failure to file the F-BAR. So here's the obvious question that comes up. Well, what if I don't, what if I don't file it? What are you going to do? Okay, here we go. Those who don't file the F-BAR when required may be subject to significant civil and criminal penalties that can result in a fine and or prison. So there's the stick. It's a pretty hefty stick that they can, they can hit you with it. They might hit you with that stick. You don't want to get hit with that stick. The IRS will not penalize those who properly reported a foreign account on a late filed F-BAR. So obviously you might be saying, well, what if I missed a time and I didn't file it on time in the past because I didn't know about it or whatever. I wasn't in compliance. I didn't know they had just such a big stick that they were going to hit me with. I don't want to go to prison or anything. Well, then obviously they're going to try to encourage you to get into the compliance. So if you were to go back into compliance, usually that they, you know, they would encourage you to be in compliance and therefore you would typically want to file how the incentive structure would be set up. So once again, the IRS will not penalize those who properly reported a foreign account on a late filed F-BAR. If the IRS determines there was reasonable cause for late filing. So more details and help available IRS.gov has several resources available 24 hours a day. There's links to these items of 2022 F-BAR fact sheet, report a foreign bank and financial accounts F-BAR international taxpayers frequently asked questions about international individual tax matters, FinCEN's website reporting maximum account value to help avoid delays with tax refunds taxpayers leaving living abroad should visit help tips for efficiently receiving a tax refund or taxpayer living abroad on IRS.gov. There's links to all that wonderful stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description.