Practical Guide to FBAR and FATCA Reporting for Individual Filers

If one owns or has authority over a foreign financial account, including a bank account, brokerage account, mutual fund, unit trust or some other type of financial account, he or she may be required to make an annual report of the account to the Internal Revenue Service. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, each United States person must file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), if the person has a financial interest in or signature authority (or other authority that is comparable to signature authority) over one or more accounts in a foreign country and the aggregate value of all foreign financial accounts exceeds threshold amounts at any time during the calendar year.