# Streamlined procedures : SDO versus SFO



## Lynneth (Mar 9, 2018)

Hi everyone,

Like lots of people here, I only learned about FBAR this year and now I want to regularize my situation. I don't know how I missed it looking at all the posts about it. Anyway!

In order to sleep well at night, I am gonna go with the streamined procedures (interests not reported).

A little bit of background. I am a french citizen living in the US since september 2012. I came on a J1 visa and I am currently on a H1B visa.
As a researcher and thanks to the treaty between France and the US, I only became resident for taxes purposes around October 2014.
And so I was non resident for the other part of the year. For 2014, I had to do a dual status return, 1040-NR and 1040.

I am amending my last 3 tax returns (2014 to 2016) because I did not report interest from saving accounts from France (tax free accounts, excempt from FATCA etc, etc).
I watch a webinar on the IRS website and I have a question regarding which streamlined procedures I should go with, which would make a big difference in paying the penalty or not I believe :>

- Quote from the IRS website, for the offshore procedures - 
"Non-residency requirement applicable to individuals who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents: Individuals who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, or estates of individuals who were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, meet the applicable non-residency requirement if,* in any one or more of the last three years* for which the U.S. tax return due date (or properly applied for extended due date) has passed, the individual did not meet the substantial presence test of IRC section 7701(b)(3)."

So I was there during 2014 but considered as non resident for tax purposes during most of the year. My question is should I go with Offshore or Domestic procedures.

Also, because I started to pay taxes here in late 2014, should I only file FBAR for thoses years (2014-106) or should I file since my first salary? First year here was an exchange so I was still paid and taxed in France.

If anyone has any advice, that would be great. Thank you.


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