With respect to your foreign stock and FBAR (FinCen Form 114) reporting requirements, these are different than those of the FATCA (IRS Form 8938) reporting requirements.
Under current United States law, there are certain foreign financial account reporting requirements that US taxpayers must meet annually, in addition to filing a primary tax return (Form 1040, etc.)
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, and you may need to access that reporting webpage separately, if your foreign financial assets total over the limit(s). Note that you can get to the FinCen reporting internet site through the above IRS link.
With respect to your foreign stock, determining the reporting requirements for it are dependent on the value of the stock itself, and how you "hold" it (i.e., registered to you as an individual shareholder, or held by a brokerage firm or other financial institution).Do all of these foreign account disclosure rules and regulations seem unnecessarily burdensome or duplicative? If so, it's not just your imagination. We would tend to agree with that assessment. However, these same rules and regulations define the present state of "foreign" account disclosure and reporting required, as a function of United States law.
We at TurboTax do not write the tax code; although we do our best to help our customers successfully navigate it.
Thank you for asking this important question.
With respect to your foreign stock and FBAR (FinCen Form 114) reporting requirements, these are different than those of the FATCA (IRS Form 8938) reporting requirements.
Under current United States law, there are certain foreign financial account reporting requirements that US taxpayers must meet annually, in addition to filing a primary tax return (Form 1040, etc.)
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, and you may need to access that reporting webpage separately, if your foreign financial assets total over the limit(s). Note that you can get to the FinCen reporting internet site through the above IRS link.
With respect to your foreign stock, determining the reporting requirements for it are dependent on the value of the stock itself, and how you "hold" it (i.e., registered to you as an individual shareholder, or held by a brokerage firm or other financial institution).Do all of these foreign account disclosure rules and regulations seem unnecessarily burdensome or duplicative? If so, it's not just your imagination. We would tend to agree with that assessment. However, these same rules and regulations define the present state of "foreign" account disclosure and reporting required, as a function of United States law.
We at TurboTax do not write the tax code; although we do our best to help our customers successfully navigate it.
Thank you for asking this important question.
Thank you, but I have a follow up: What if you own foreign shares through a foreign companies ESOP that you do not have held in your financial account? In my case the company "held" the shares on my behalf last year (2017) and now I am in the process of setting up my own personal brokerage account to receive/sell/transfer those shares. For the next tax year, I assume I will just add this new brokerage account to my FBAR, but what are my reporting obligations for 2017?