U.S. Treasury Issues New Proposed FBAR Rules

The U.S. Treasury has issued proposed regulations governing the filing of U.S. Foreign Bank Account Reports (FBAR). The new rules provide several key revisions to the existing FBAR regulations under 31 CFR § 1010.350. The FBAR regulations are issued under the legislative authority of the Bank Secrecy Act. Key points of the proposed regulations include:

1. The requirement would be eliminated for U.S. officers, employees, and agents of U.S. entities to report signature authority over foreign financial accounts owned by the entity if the individual does not have any financial interest in the account. The U.S. officer, employee, and agent of the U.S. entity would not have to report such accounts on their respective individual FBAR, if the accounts are reported on an FBAR filed by their employer or any other entity within the same corporate or business structure. The employer would be required to maintain records for five years to document all U.S. officers, employees, and agents with signature authority over the entity’s accounts.

2. The relief which currently allows limited reporting on the FBAR when a filer has 25 or more reportable accounts would be eliminated. The proposed rule would require U.S. persons with 25 or more reportable accounts to provide the detailed account information for each reportable account on the FBAR in the same manner as filers with less than 25 accounts.

3. The new FBAR filing due date will be April 15, with a six month extension allowed to October 15, beginning with FBARs filed for the calendar year 2016.

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