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FBAR (reporting foreign bank accounts)

February 10th, 2018 at 12:11 am

In addition to our taxes, we have to file FBAR each year (reporting of foreign bank accounts). This is in addition to showing any interest earned or money earned in Ireland on our taxes.

You have to do this if at any point during the previous year the total of your foreign accounts was over $10k. Not euro10k, but in dollars. We've had to do it the past five years or so.

The thing I don't like about it is that it it is under FinCen (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network). It's like the assumption is that your committing a crime by having a bank account in another country.

Since I married my husband, there have been a lot of judgements (why couldn't you meet someone in the US? why did you keep the Irish house? why didn't you cut your ties to Ireland/UK? is your marriage real since you're older and he's younger? don't you like American men?). These are real questions from real people. It just gets old. This feel like one more example: "why do you still have a foreign bank account when you live in the US now?"

We have nothing to hide. We have that account because we lived in that country and I am very glad we kept it. We earn rental income on our house there (yes, we pay Irish taxes on that income, and we declare it on our US taxes). The bank account is the easiest way to transfer money between countries (we use Transferwise) and when we travel there, we just use that account (taking money out at ATMs) rather than out of our US account.

Do any of you also file FBAR? Does it make you kind of annoyed each time you file also?

5 Responses to “FBAR (reporting foreign bank accounts)”

  1. Jane Says:
    1518357886

    Wow, those questions are unbelievably intrusive and rude.

    On a lighter note, my friend recently had an appointment with immigration after marrying her foreign-born husband to start his citizenship process. She's also a hardcore scrapbooker, and was nervous they might be accused of having a fake greencard relationship (definitely not the case), so she brought their very elaborate wedding planning/wedding and honeymoon scrapbooks as proof they do things together, have joint friends, etc. She said the immmigration officer laughed and said he has never been more convinced that anyone's relationship was sincere!

  2. rob62521 Says:
    1518382397

    What inconsiderate folks to ask such personal questions. Sheesh. It really isn't any of their business. My hubby is 14 years older than I am. And if anyone says anything, I just laugh and say I liked older men. Personally, I think people have decided it is OK to say anything they want without thinking about the ramifications.

    We don't have any foreign accounts.

  3. scfr Says:
    1518465671

    No FBAR here, but my personal "favorite" question when we were planning our wedding 25 years ago was "Is he marrying you for a green card?"

  4. My English Castle Says:
    1518477793

    Gees--what is the matter with people. We're in the same boat with the UK savings and a 'slightly" young husband. Our UK savings is so handy when we're abroad. I have to say my favorite comment was when a student asked me if my husband had to learn English when he came to the US. He got quite a chuckle out of that one, and told me to tell the student, "Darling, we invented the language." I skipped the "darling" part.

  5. Buendia Says:
    1518539241

    My favorite was the very sweet woman who asked my husband "What do you do in England for Fourth of July?" He was very kind and explained to her that it would be odd for the UK to celebrate US independence, but he said that he wanted to tell her that England throws a big party to express their relief at the US not being part of the commonwealth!

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