For married filing jointly with foreign accounts, consider the following example with two bank accounts A and B:
May 1st:
Account A balance = $50,000
Account B balance = $10,000
May 2nd:
$60,000 was transferred to Account A (from an external source) leading to:
Account A = $110,000
Account B = $10,000
May 3rd:
$60,000 was transferred from Account A to Account B leading to:
Account A = $50,000
Account B = $70,000
How is the aggregate calculated for Form 8938's reporting threshold?
a) Aggregating the maximum value of all accounts crosses the threshold but a lot of it is counting the same money twice i.e. Account A max of $110,000 + Account B max of $70,000 gives $180,000 (meeting the $150,000 threshold).
b) Or is the aggregate calculated based on a single day?
For example, on May 2nd Account A balance of $110,000 and Account B balance of $10,000 = $120,000. Similarly on May 3rd too the calculation comes to $50,000 + $70,000 = $120,000.
