FinCen Provides Updated FBAR Relief to Harvey, Irma, and Maria Hurricane Victims

Oct 27, 2017

In this hot off the press post, the FBAR Wiz will explore some additional relief being provided to taxpayers that were impacted by hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and/or Maria. In specific, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (known as FinCEN) today updated two previous notices regarding FBAR-filing relief to victims of the recent hurricanes. Extension filers have until January 31, 2018 to file their FBAR forms for calendar year 2016, which would otherwise be due October 15, 2017. First, FinCEN updated the notice issued September 7, 2017, which provides FBAR-filing relief to victims of Hurricane Harvey, to expand the relief to include victims of Hurricane Harvey in additional areas that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has designated as qualifying for individual assistance or public assistance. Second, FinCEN also has updated the notice issued September 12, 2017, which provides FBAR-filing relief to victims of Hurricane Irma, to expand the relief to include victims of Hurricane Maria, as well as victims of Hurricane Irma in additional areas that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated as qualifying for individual assistance or public assistance. The Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Florida, and Georgia are now eligible. If you suspect that you may have to report foreign accounts and/or foreign assets to the IRS, find out for sure by using the free FBAR Wiz app to detect your offshore reporting obligations in under 3 minutes. If this post interested you, you may also want to check out a related blog post exploring the intricacies of drafting and filing the Form 8938.