Hi, I was employed by an overseas company. As part of their incentive program, I bought some shares of my employer's stock (Swedish company, with brokerage firm based in Finland). If I hold these shares for 4 years, I will receive additional free shares, i.e. stock grants.
I bought shares in 2021 and 2022, and received dividends in 2022. The stock grants have not happened yet. It will happen in 2025 and 2026.
I already filed FBAR, but that's just a declaration, without any tax consequence. For this year's 1040 filing, under section "Interest and Dividends", and subsection "1099-OID, Foreign Accounts", I chose "owned a foreign bank, broker or financial account", then "yes" to the question "was the total value more than $10,000 during any time in 2022". It just said that "You need to file a FBAR". On the next screen, I chose "yes" to the question "I have foreign financial assets", but "no" to "lived in a foreign country". On the next screen, I answered that the total amount was less than $100,000. The software told me "based on what you told us, you don't need to report your foreign financial assets". It never even asked me how much dividends I received.
I want to understand the underlying tax law, instead of just trusting the software, so I am hoping the experts on this forum can share some insight with me.
From the Interview questions in the TT software, I am getting the impression that if the foreign financial assets is under $100k, any dividend/interest from the account is not taxable by US? Also, looking down the road, in 2024, when I do get the stock grants, if the total value goes above $100k, I will be required to report on the grants and the dividends?
