# FBAR Uncertainty



## CaveArc (May 11, 2013)

Hi, another Newbie here! 

I have a few questions on FBARS, which I only just discovered I have to file:

1. When calculating if I had $10k in aggregate in my foreign accounts, do I include unique one-off conditions? Examples include: I sold a car to help pay for my wedding, so there was $7k in the account for a month - but it was quickly spent. Or, when we took out a mortgage, the bank set up the loan by transferring it through our transaction account, so there were $100's of K in there for one day... etc.

2. My NRA and I have joint accounts. In filling out the FBAR, do I only claim 50%? Or, since I could grab the money & run, do I have to claim it all? The difference in answers will put me over the $10k reporting threshold - for 2010 - and thus make me delinquent.

Many thanks for any useful info you all can provide!

Cavey


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

I've moved you into a thread of your own, since there are lots of folks out there who will have much the same questions:



CaveArc said:


> Hi, another Newbie here!
> 
> I have a few questions on FBARS, which I only just discovered I have to file:
> 
> 1. When calculating if I had $10k in aggregate in my foreign accounts, do I include unique one-off conditions? Examples include: I sold a car to help pay for my wedding, so there was $7k in the account for a month - but it was quickly spent. Or, when we took out a mortgage, the bank set up the loan by transferring it through our transaction account, so there were $100's of K in there for one day... etc.


Officially, the requirement is $10K in aggregate as a "high balance" anytime during the year. So, in your examples, yes you would have to consider even those circumstances where you had a high balance just for a day - or even for 10 minutes.

Practically speaking, however, the IRS does allow you to report as the high balance for each account the highest reported balance on your statements (say, end of the month). If your mortgage money passed through your account on the 15th of the month and thus didn't appear in the balance in that month's statement, you could justifiably ignore it and just use the end of the month balance.




> 2. My NRA and I have joint accounts. In filling out the FBAR, do I only claim 50%? Or, since I could grab the money & run, do I have to claim it all? The difference in answers will put me over the $10k reporting threshold - for 2010 - and thus make me delinquent.


Officially, you are supposed to report the account balance on joint accounts, not "your share" of the balance.

But practically speaking, they aren't really all that interested in the exact amount you report as the high balance. If you're off by a little bit, I wouldn't expect the IRS to come swooping down on you. (In practice, I usually just scan my bank statements for what looks to be the high balance and then I round "up" by $1000 or so.) What's more important is to report the existence of the accounts.
Cheers,
Bev


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