SusanY1
Expert Alumni

Retirement tax questions

Both the FBAR and the 8938 are reporting only forms, though the 8938 does ask if there are any income items from the assets listed on the account.  File your past year FBAR forms directly with FinCEN HERE.  You will use the link for "BSA filing" (not beneficial ownership reporting).  It will ask the reason for the late filing and one of the options allowed is "I didn't know I had to file." 

For the Form 8938, since it is attached to your tax return, you can submit it for prior years by filing an amended return.  I would recommend amending for the prior 3 years.  

Since there aren't any calculations that would change you could also do this relatively easily by hand.  To do that, fill out the 8938 and attach to it only Form 1040X.  You would fill out only the top of the form with your names, SSNs, address, and the tax year for which you are filing an amendment.  Then skip to the bottom and provide the explanation - something like "we are sending Form 8938 for the above year which we only recently became aware we were required to file."   Then mail it to the IRS at the address provided for 1040-X and your resident state HERE.

 

You can also prepare amended returns in TurboTax as well, of course, using these instructions:

 

Amend TurboTax Online 

Amend TurboTax CD/Download 

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