# FBAR and Back Tax



## FBAR2015 (Oct 29, 2015)

Dear Experts,

I came in US at the end of 2010 in a temporary work visa in a small US city. I took help from local CPA to file my IRS and State Taxes. I was not aware of the FBAR form and declaration of foreign interest. I recently came to know from one of my friend about these. I missed taxes around $300 per year. I was in-time to file 2014 FBAR.

Recently I took help from one of tax filing company and they prepared an amended tax return and I filed 1040x for all previous years 2012,13 and 14. Even my local IRS told me to do the same when I walked in their office. I filed my amended returns around 2 weeks back. No status update in IRS office so far.

Couple of days back I came to know that this is something called QD and IRS discourage that. 

Now my questions are:

1. Will this be treated as a gross violation for doing QD and I will be punished. All my foreign income is from interest only and most of the accounts are inherited when I came in US back in 2010. What are my chances?

2. It's being more than 2 weeks my returns has been sent to IRS and it's already 10 days when the checks has been cashed however there is no status showing under "Where is my amended returns?" Am I under audit?

3. Do I need to do anything proactively to correct my situation?

I'm feeling helpless after reading all FBAR lawyer sites. I'm spending sleepless night. Please help.


----------



## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

I'm not entirely clear what you did here. You say you filed amended returns for 2012 - 2014, so that assumes that you filed regular tax returns for those years. (I.e. 1040 forms). If there were errors or omissions for those years, filing amended returns (the 1040X forms) was the right thing to do and there should be no problem. It's not "Quiet Disclosure" since you filed on time initially. You're simply filing a correction (i.e. the amendment). 

FBAR is something apart and separate from filing tax returns - it involves listing and disclosing your foreign bank accounts, along with the high balance for the year for which you're filing. Officially speaking, if you back file the FBARs you probably should do so for the past 6 years (or at least starting with the first year you were in the US and subject to US taxation - so 2011).

Practically speaking, the FBAR doesn't really concern itself with income, just the account balances. There's little or no evidence so far to say that "they" (Treasury Dept. in the case of the FBARs) will come after you for failure to file those back years as long as you filed correctly for 2014 and continue to do so going forward. But if it helps you sleep at night, file the back FBARs, using the "didn't know" option as your reason for filing late.

Don't however, expect any acknowledgement of your back filings (for either 1040s or FBARs). This is the classic case where "no news is good news."
Cheers,
Bev


----------



## FBAR2015 (Oct 29, 2015)

Thanks Bev for your reply. I mean to say that I filed my regular returns for year 2012-2014 using form 1040 but didn't mention my income from interest on foreign accounts. Recently I amended those returns and filed 1040x and Schedule B with back taxes along with Penalty and interest.

Regarding FBAR, yes I filed for 2011 - 2013 delinquent and 2014 on-time.


----------



## ForeignBody (Oct 20, 2011)

FBAR2015 said:


> Thanks Bev for your reply. I mean to say that I filed my regular returns for year 2012-2014 using form 1040 but didn't mention my income from interest on foreign accounts. Recently I amended those returns and filed 1040x and Schedule B with back taxes along with Penalty and interest.
> 
> Regarding FBAR, yes I filed for 2011 - 2013 delinquent and 2014 on-time.


It looks like everything is good. You discovered a tax error and corrected it voluntarily in the correct manner.

You have brought your FBARs up to date.

I know that some of the blog stuff is scary and theoretically the IRS has draconian powers, but your case is trivial in the scale of things. Do not worry about not hearing anything and there is absolutely no reason to think that you are under audit. The IRS does not move that quickly!


----------

