My wife (Japanese National) and I reside in the U.S., I am a U.S. citizen and she a U.S. PR. She was aware her parents opened up a bank account for her in her childhood and never accessed it. She believed all the new year’s gifts she received - and any gift throughout her childhood, her mom kept in her parents accounts.
When I’ve been filing our taxes for the past ten years, we never mentioned in our returns anything about her account as she thought it was closed out when she went to college here in the U.S. or the balance was lower than 10k.
We just had a conversation with her dad since he is planning for what would happen when he passes, inheritance and whatnot. We discovered that there are accounts tied to my wife and the value is over 150k USD. We do not know how many accounts there are, but we will travel in May to sort this out.
I came across the FBAR and 8938 text, had a brief consultation with H&R Block, and am coming to the notion that:
A) need to find out all we can about these accounts in a spreadsheet format for possibly the past 6 years (bank name, branch location, account number, type of account, maximum balance in x year, end of year balance)
B) start my 2022 U.S. tax filing to see if I owe anything for my household here in the U.S., prepay that amount if I do and then file for extensions so I can file form 8938 once we know about all her accounts
C) file amendments to the past three tax years once I know about the history of the accounts and the corresponding years
D) file current and late FBARs after the trip in May, specifying reason why it’s late
E) hope for the best that this is considered non-willful
I am seeking advice if this seems like the right track and anything you can recall if you think it would help. Thank you in advance.
Edit: formatting and additional question:
do Japanese banks easily provide statements that could help with this, like if we walk in to the branch and ask if they could help prepare the past 6 years of transactions of the account including balance and interest earned?
When I’ve been filing our taxes for the past ten years, we never mentioned in our returns anything about her account as she thought it was closed out when she went to college here in the U.S. or the balance was lower than 10k.
We just had a conversation with her dad since he is planning for what would happen when he passes, inheritance and whatnot. We discovered that there are accounts tied to my wife and the value is over 150k USD. We do not know how many accounts there are, but we will travel in May to sort this out.
I came across the FBAR and 8938 text, had a brief consultation with H&R Block, and am coming to the notion that:
A) need to find out all we can about these accounts in a spreadsheet format for possibly the past 6 years (bank name, branch location, account number, type of account, maximum balance in x year, end of year balance)
B) start my 2022 U.S. tax filing to see if I owe anything for my household here in the U.S., prepay that amount if I do and then file for extensions so I can file form 8938 once we know about all her accounts
C) file amendments to the past three tax years once I know about the history of the accounts and the corresponding years
D) file current and late FBARs after the trip in May, specifying reason why it’s late
E) hope for the best that this is considered non-willful
I am seeking advice if this seems like the right track and anything you can recall if you think it would help. Thank you in advance.
Edit: formatting and additional question:
do Japanese banks easily provide statements that could help with this, like if we walk in to the branch and ask if they could help prepare the past 6 years of transactions of the account including balance and interest earned?
