EU & Italian International Tax Law Blog : International Tax Lawyer & Attorney : Marco Rossi Law Firm : Italy, New York, European Union, EU

Starting with the tax year 2011, the new IRS Form 8938 must be filed by all U.S. persons if total foreign financial assets exceeded $50,000 at any point during the year.  Form 8938 will be in addition to the long-standing Treasury Department FBAR (Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report) required for financial assets abroad that exceed $10,000 and shall have to be filed together with the federal income tax return for the year. 

Furthermore, Form 8621 (Passive Foreign Investment Company – PFIC) must now be filed every year for each separate PFIC investment where as previously it was only required to be filed in years that distributions were made from the PFIC investment. Finally, the statute of limitation for IRS audits of returns listing foreign sourced income has been extended to 6 years (previously 3 years).

Where non-compliance is “non-wilful,” failure to file form 8938 results in a minimum $10,000 penalty but may rise to as much as 40% of the value of the asset or account.  This is in addition to the tax due and interest due.   Non-compliance deemed “wilful” may result additionally in criminal prosecution.

While FATCA does not change the existing penalties resulting from failure to properly report such as the FBAR and Form 8621 (PFIC report), FATCA will result in a dramatically increased enforcement of these rules and therefore U.S. citizens and residents (including Americans living abroad and foreign nationals living in the U.S) should become familiar with the  very significant penalties associated with these and other reporting requirements.

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Secondo quanto riportato di recente su Bloomberg, diverse banche svizzere sarebbero in procinto di siglare un accordo con il fisco americano a chiusura di un contenzioso in materia di evasione fiscale. In forza dell'accordo le banche si disporrebbero a pagare una somma in via transattiva e fornire al fisco americano le informazioni sui propri clienti cittadini o residenti americani. L'accordo chiuderebbe una procedura civile avviata nei confronti di 11 banche svizzere responsabili, a detta del fisco americano, di avere aiutato i contribuenti americani a evadere le imposte. In base alla normativa fiscale USA, coloro che sono soggetti ad imposta sui redditi negli USA - tra cui cittadini americani residenti in Italia, tassati in base alla cittadinanza, e cittadini italiani residenti negli Stati Uniti, tassati in base alla residenza - sono tenuti a dichiarare conti e investimenti detenuti al di fuori degli USA mediante un apposito modulo (Foreign Bank Account Report, in acronimo FBAR) equivalente in sostanza al modulo RW del Modello Unico italiano, e a dichiarare i redditi derivanti dai predetti conti ed investimenti. Eventuali imposte estere danno diritto ad un credito di imposta ad eliminazione della doppia imposizione. Negli ultimi tre anni gli Stati Uniti hanno adottato due programmi di incentivazione a riportare conti e depositi esteri con somme non dichiarate beneficiando di sconti sulle sanzioni dovute. Anche a prescindere da questi programmi, il sistema fiscale USA consente in generale di presentare dichiarazioni tardive che correggono errori o mancanze pregresse e in caso di buona fede è possibile evitare sanzioni. L'attenzione dell'amministrazione fiscale e la pressione sulle banche estere sono molto forti e si sta registrando un trend sempre più marcato verso forme di trasparenza e rilascio di informazioni a fini fiscali che stanno inducendo molti contribuenti a mettersi in regola con il fisco.

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The IRS issued press release IR-2011-14 (Feb. 8, 2011) which announces the opening of a new program for the voluntary disclosure of foreign bank accounts with filing of back taxes and delinquent foreign bank account reports for the past eight years. The press release summarizes the highlights of the program and also links to a more detailed Q&A. The press release can be found here and the Q&A could be found here. As suggested by the IRS previously, the new program has stiffer penalty rules. OVDI requires individuals to pay a penalty of 25% of the amount in the foreign bank accounts in the year with the highest aggregate account balance covering the 2003 to 2010 time period. There are reduced penalties for some eligible taxpayer of 5 or 12.5%. Taxpayers will also have to pay back-taxes and interest for up to 8 years.  All of this is obviously more stringent compared to the 2009 program’s 20% penalty and 6 year look-back (2003-2008).  Taxpayers will have to enroll in the program by August 31st in order to be able to benefit from the potential avoidance of criminal liability and higher civil penalties. U.S. resident taxpayers with assets in Italy or other foreign countries, and U.S. citizens residing abroad and in Italy should pay attention to the new program, which may offer opportunities to rectify previous mistakes or omissions and be back in compliance with substantially reduced penalties.   

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