New Help for U.S. Citizens Overseas

Summary

Cross References • IR-2012-65, June 26, 2012 The Internal Revenue Service has announced a plan to help U.S. citizens residing overseas, including dual citizens, catch up with tax filing obligations and provide assistance for people with foreign retirement plan issues. “Today we are announcing a series of common-sense steps to help U.S. citizens abroad get current with their tax obligations and resolve pension issues,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. Shulman announced the IRS will provide a new option to help some U.S. citizens and others residing abroad who haven’t been filing tax returns and provide them a chance to catch up with their tax filing obligations if they owe little or no back taxes. The new procedure will go into effect on September 1, 2012. The IRS is aware that some U.S. taxpayers living abroad have failed to timely file U.S. federal income tax returns or Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs). Some of these taxpayers have recently become aware of their filing requirements and want to comply with the law. To help these taxpayers, the new procedures will allow taxpayers who are low-compliance risks to get current with their tax requirements without facing penalties or additional enforcement action. These people generally will have simple tax returns and owe $1,500 or less in tax for any of the covered years. The new procedures will also allow resolution of certain issues related to certain foreign retirement plans (such as Canadian Registered Retirement Savings Plans). In some circumstances, tax treaties allow for income deferral under U.S. tax law, but only if an election is made on a timely basis. The streamlined procedures will be made available to resolve low-compliance risk situations even though this election was not made on a timely basis. Description of proposed new procedure. Taxpayers utilizing the new procedure are required to file delinquent tax returns, with appropriate related information returns, for the past three years and to file delinquent FBARs for the past six years. All submissions will be reviewed, but the intensity of review will vary according to the level of compliance risk presented by the submission. For those taxpayers presenting low-compliance risk, the review will be expedited and the IRS will not assert penalties or pursue follow-up actions. Submissions that present higher compliance risk are not eligible for the procedure and will be subject to a more thorough review, and possibly a full examination, which in some cases may include more than three years, in a manner similar to opting out of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program. Tax, interest and penalties, if appropriate, will be imposed in accordance with U.S. federal tax laws based on a review of the submission. In addition, retroactive relief for failure to timely elect income deferral on certain retirement and savings plans, where deferral is permitted by relevant treaty, will be available through this process. The proper deferral elections with respect to such arrangements must be made with the submission. See printable version for the remainder of the article.

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