Monday, April 5, 2021
Last week the Ninth Circuit issued a win for taxpayers in
US v. Boyd, limiting penalties for non-willful violations of the requirement to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). The FBAR requirement applies to all United States persons with interest in or authority over a foreign financial account where the aggregate value of all such accounts is more than $10,000. Jane Boyd, a United States citizen, was required to file an FBAR due to her multiple bank accounts in the United Kingdom but failed to do so in 2010. After voluntarily disclosing the accounts through the IRS’s Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, the IRS found that she had committed thirteen FBAR violations, one for each overseas account.