I recently discovered that a zero balance account that I thought I closed a long time ago was still open. I tried to amend 2 FBARs for last 2 years but I think I didn’t do it correctly. l checked the “Amended” box and entered the Prior Report BSA Identifier. But I used same report name as the original report. Later I found information that said that I should have given the amended FBAR a different and unique name.
Also, I didn’t know if I should have selected “If this report is being filed late, select the reason for filing late.” Because the original reports were filed on time. I didn’t think an amended report counts as being “late” if it’s filed after the deadline for original report.
But I did want to give an explanation, because I’m just reporting a zero value account that I thought was closed. So on one of the amended FBARs I selected Late for reason “Other”. That was the only way to get the explanation text field to appear.
But on the other amended FBAR, for different year, I didn’t give an explanation and now I think I should have.
What should I do now to avoid problems? Can I file a second amended report for each year that corrects these errors (failing to give the report a unique name) and provides explanations for both reports? Or should I just do nothing?
Thanks for any wisdom on this.
