Kevin Brekke, International Man
June brings privacy gloom for US tax filers. June 30 is the filing deadlinefor Treasury Form TD F 90-22.1 (the FBAR), wherein US persons get to stand financially naked by reporting their foreign held financial assets or accounts. The pat down was turned into a strip search with the introduction of the new IRS Form 8938 that greatly expanded the types of foreign assets now required to be reported to the US tax authorities.
Over the past 18 months, a series of changes to the reporting requirements for foreign assets held by US tax filers were introduced, including the release of the new form 8938 mentioned above. With each change came questions, as the instructions were not always clear and left tax filers hanging about how they should be interpreted - an unsettling situation, as the penalties for failure to file are absurdly extreme. However ...
