In fact, there are several different disclosure forms that may be required of you; each also has different
reporting rules. One is known as IRS Form 8938, and can be
attached to your 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 with TurboTax, and you may need to access that reporting
webpage separately, if your Canadian financial asset(s) total over the
limit(s). Note that you can get to the FinCen reporting internet site
through the above IRS link.
Additionally, Form 3520 and Form 3520A may be required as well, to report your Canadian tax-deferred accounts.
There is a good (internet) article on this topic published by the large Canadian accounting firm Collins Barrow. (All credit for the intellectual property therein belongs to the original author.) Here is the link to it:
http://www.collinsbarrow.com/en/cbn/publications/resp-and-tfsa-accounts-for-u.s.-citizens
Although it is ostensibly directed at an audience of US Citizens with Canadian accounts, the rules and discussion there are fully applicable as well to Canadian citizens who qualify as resident aliens under United States tax law. Please see the following IRS webpage for details on that:
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/determining-alien-tax-status
While the Collins Barrow article mentions FACTA relief, this applies to Canadian financial institutions only. The Form 8938 and FinCen Form 114 reporting rules still apply to individual taxpayers. Moreover, the US reporting requirements extend to Canadian RRSP and TFSA accounts, even if not explicitly named in the article.
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.
Thank you for asking this important question.
