FBAR, Form 1040 and Form 8938 are separate federal filings built on one list of foreign accounts. The FBAR goes to FinCEN, not with your return, and no state has its own. The foreign income on your Form 1040 usually…
The IRS removed the Delinquent FBAR Submission Procedures at the end of June 2026, so late FBARs no longer have a published penalty-free path. You can still file late and explain why, or use Streamlined Domestic, which offers penalty protection…
Rental activity is passive by default, even if you work on it every week. It becomes nonpassive only if you qualify as a real estate professional, with more than 750 hours and more than half your working time, and materially…
If you never file, the IRS can prepare a return for you under section 6020(b), built only from income reported by employers, banks and brokers. It generally leaves out dependents, itemized deductions, credits and basis, so the tax is usually…
Sometimes. An IRS Chief Counsel memo allowed a theft loss deduction for compromised-account, pig butchering and phishing scams, because the money was tied to a transaction entered into for profit. It disallowed romance and kidnapping scams as personal casualty losses….
Tax-free in India does not mean tax-free on a US return. A US resident is taxed on PPF interest as it is credited. The EPF and the EPS are contested, with no IRS ruling, so document your position. The FBAR…
If you are a US citizen, green card holder or US tax resident, your NRE and NRO accounts are foreign accounts for US purposes. Report the interest on your Form 1040, file an FBAR when their combined peak balances exceed…
A rental abroad goes on Schedule E like any other rental, with three differences. The building is depreciated over 30 years under the alternative depreciation system, not 27.5. Every figure must be translated into dollars. And the property itself is…
For most married couples, filing jointly costs less, because filing separately shuts off the education credits and the student loan interest deduction and shrinks Roth IRA room. Filing separately can win in narrow cases: large medical bills on a lower…
The streamlined filing compliance procedures let a taxpayer whose failure to report foreign accounts was non-willful file three years of returns and six years of FBARs. If you meet the non-residency test the miscellaneous offshore penalty is nothing; if you…
