Gunster – Banking Advisory, January 2009
Yesterday, the Financial Crimes EnforcementNetwork (“FinCEN”) announced that it has updated the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) Forms and Filing Requirements webpage to include the revised Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (“FBAR”) form for the 2008 reporting period (“Revised FBAR”).
The FBAR must be filed by each U.S. person(including a bank) who has a financial interest in, orsignature authority, or other authority, over any financial accounts in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. FBAR forms must be filed on or before June 30 of thesucceeding year.
The Revised FBAR solicits more detailedinformation with respect to financial accounts.Specifically, the Revised FBAR is divided into five(5) parts as follows: (i) Part I solicits informationregarding the filer; (ii) Part II solicits information onfinancial accounts owned separately; (iii) Part IIIsolicits information on financial accounts ownedjointly; (iv) Part IV solicits information on financialaccounts where the filer has signature or otherauthority, but no financial interest; and (v) Part Vsolicits information on financial accounts where acorporate filer is filing a consolidated report.
The changes appearing in the Revised FBAR areconsistent with the U.S. government’s increasedscrutiny of U.S. citizens with financial accounts inforeign countries.
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Should you wish to receive further information concerning matters discussed in this Banking Advisory, please contact Clemente Vazquez-Bello,Esq. at (305) 376-6082, Andres A. Fernandez, Esq.at (305) 376-6097 or Marina Olman, Esq. at (305)376-6069 or at [email protected],[email protected] or [email protected].
This Banking Advisory is for general information only. It is not legal advice, and legal counsel should be contacted before any action is taken which might be influenced by this Banking Advisory.
