Hopefully this answer will help clear up your confusion.
First of all let's assume for purposes of this discussion that your husband, in the United States on an O-1 visa, was indeed a resident alien for the 2016 tax year. Second, the IRS considers those persons who are married as of December 31st to have been married all year, as a function of US tax law. That means a Married Filing Jointly tax return, using the Form 1040 series for US citizens and resident aliens, is appropriate in your case.
So good so far. The fact that you husband earned no income in his home country of Germany in 2016 also makes things a little easier from an income tax compliance and filing perspective; but it has no actual effect on the US requirement to disclose foreign financial accounts and holdings. (One can think of this as an accumulated wealth disclosure requirement, rather than as a current-year income disclosure requirement, if it helps to make sense of it.)
That said, resident aliens are subject to the same reporting rules on declaring foreign financial accounts (like bank accounts in Germany, for instance) as are US citizens. And as you are filing a tax return now as a married couple, those reporting responsibilities become yours as well.
In fact, there are two
separate disclosure forms that may be required; each also has different
reporting rules. One is known as IRS Form 8938, and can be
attached to the relevant yearly Form 1040 tax return. The other is FinCen
Form 114, which can only be filed via the internet. The following
Internal Revenue Service webpage describes them in some detail, and provides
their dollar value reporting levels:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/comparison-of-form-8938-and-fbar-requirements
Form 8938 is included in
TurboTax. FinCen Form 114 is not included in TurboTax, and you would need to access that reporting
webpage separately, if your foreign financial assets total over the
limit(s) indicated on that IRS webpage. Note that you can get to the FinCen reporting internet site
through the above IRS link.
In conclusion, the
answer to your original question is yes, you must "report" or "disclose" your spouse's
foreign bank account or other foreign accounts, if they exceed the amounts indicated by the IRS (and the rules for each Form 8938 and FinCen Form 114 are different). Form 8938 can be filed with your regular US joint income tax return, whereas FinCen Form 114 must be filed using a US Treasury Department internet portal.
Thank you for asking this important question.
