u/Fresh-Archer6403

Hi there,
We are uk citizens who lived in the US for 7 years. We were advised by the tax advisor who did our returns for the first 4 of those years that Fbars should only include checking accounts not pensions or investment accounts. (Our foreign accounts included checking accounts, one investment account and a couple of workplace pension accounts). So we filed fbars in the years our checking accounts went above the threshold. Regarding the tax returns, similarly we never filed form 8938 because we didn’t believe we needed to. We did report the dividend income from our investment account in our tax return but there was no income from our pension accounts.

So I believe our tax returns are all ok but we need to file 3 new Fbars and 4 amended Fbars and do tax return amendments including the 8938 form for all 7 years. Is this correct and can we do the delinquent process rather than the sfop thereby not incurring any penalties? Finally if so, any tips on wording the reasonable cause doc?

Hi there, I’ve reviewed the thread and seen this is a common issue but every situation is slightly different so wanted to source opinions on our specific issue.
We are uk citizens who lived in the US for 7 years. We were advised by the tax advisor who did our returns for the first 4 of those years that Fbars should only include checking accounts not pensions or investment accounts. (Our foreign accounts included checking accounts, one investment account and a couple of workplace pension accounts). So we filed fbars in the years our checking accounts went above the threshold. Regarding the tax returns, similarly we never filed form 8938 because we didn’t believe we needed to. We did report the dividend income from our investment account in our tax return but there was no income from our pension accounts.

So I believe our tax returns are all ok but we need to file 3 new Fbars and 4 amended Fbars and do tax return amendments including the 8938 form for all 7 years. Is this correct and can we do the delinquent process rather than the sfop thereby not incurring any penalties? Finally if so, any tips on wording the reasonable cause doc?