Tag Archives: FBAR marriage

CARES Act Relief: How US citizen taxation leads to sending relief money to individuals outside the United States and denies relief money to individuals inside the United States

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Introduction

This post is based on my Quora answer to the question: “Do you agree with the policy of not issuing checks to US citizens who jointly file taxes with someone who has an ITIN?”

Part I – Objective Analysis

This post focuses on the class of individuals entitled to relief. It does not discuss how the relief is administered.

The statute authorizing the relief is found in Section 6428 or Subtitle F (the Procedure And Administration section of the Internal Revenue Code). The following sections specify WHO is entitled to the relief:

§6428. 2020 Recovery rebates for individuals

(d) Eligible individual

For purposes of this section, the term “eligible individual” means any individual other than-

(1) any nonresident alien individual,

…

(g) Identification number requirement

(1) In general

No credit shall be allowed under subsection (a) to an eligible individual who does not include on the return of tax for the taxable year-

(A) such individual’s valid identification number,

(B) in the case of a joint return, the valid identification number of such individual’s spouse, and

(C) in the case of any qualifying child taken into account under subsection (a)(2), the valid identification number of such qualifying child.

(2) Valid identification number

(A) In general

For purposes of paragraph (1), the term “valid identification number” means a social security number (as such term is defined in section 24(h)(7)).

(B) Adoption taxpayer identification number

For purposes of paragraph (1)(C), in the case of a qualifying child who is adopted or placed for adoption, the term “valid identification number” shall include the adoption taxpayer identification number of such child.

In summary this means that:

Those who are conditionally entitled to relief include, ANY individual except a nonresident alien, provided that they:

– have a Social Security Number (who is eligible for a Social Security Number?); and

– do NOT file jointly with an individual who does not have a Social Security Number

Who is a “nonresident alien” and therefore NOT an “eligible individual”?

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#YouCantMakeThisUp! Married Americans abroad are more likely to meet requirements to file US tax returns than are singles – But, then again marriage to a nonresident alien is considered to be a form of tax evasion

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Before moving to the post, if you believe that Americans abroad are being treated unjustly by the United States Government: Join me on May 17, 2019 for a discussion of U.S. “citizenship-based taxation” as follows:


You are invited to submit your questions in advance.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
_____________________________________________________________________________
I begin with the conclusion …


The Every Day facts:


1. A U.S. citizen living in Canada Is married to an alien (the nonresident type)
2. Had $500 of part time employment income
3. Because she is married (in accordance with the definition of “married” in Internal Revenue Code 7703) she is of course required to absorb all the punitive consequences of the “married filing separately” filing category. The “married filing separately category” is a punitive filing category which is a “hidden tax on Americans abroad“.
In the 2017 tax (and previous) year she had NOT met the filing threshold required to file a U.S. tax return. Using the IRS Interactive “Do I Have To File A Tax Return” tool, we find that:

(Note that this refers to a threshold of $4050 which is the amount of the personal exemption for 2017. The significance of this will be further explained below.)
She did however have financial assets which exceeded the $200,000 threshold required to file Form 8938. Most of these assets were owned jointly with her nonresident alien husband. Because she had not met the filing threshold for “married filing separately” in 2017 and previous years she had not been required to file Form 8938. Notice that Form 8938 does require her to report to the IRS assets that are jointly owned with her “nonresident alien” husband. (By the way he would not be happy about this. I some cases this forces Americans abroad to choose between their U.S. citizenship and their marriage.)
April 2019 – An SOS …
I received a frantic message. She was/is trying to to determine whether she is required to file a U.S. tax return for the 2018 year (based on her $500 of income and her status as “married filing separately”).
On the one hand she is directed by IRS publication 54 (the Bible For Americans Abroad) that her filing threshold is $12,000.


On the other hand, she is being told on the IRS page describing filing thresholds that she is required to file a U.S. tax return.


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Mr. Pomerantz meets Mr. #FBAR in the Homeland: The "willful" FBAR penalty requires proof of "willfulness"

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Looking for Mr. FBAR

This is one more in a series of posts discussing the FBAR rules. The FBAR rules were born in 1970, laid virtually dormant until the 2000s and then were then unleashed in their full “ferocity” on U.S. persons. A good review of the history of Mr. FBAR is here. A discussion of how the discovery of Mr. FBAR can lead to larger problems is here. Finally, a discussion of of why people must exercise caution in “fixing problems with FBAR” is here.

Mr. FBAR has not visited Canada, but he has visited Canadian citizens


Mr. Pomerantz returns …
Readers of this blog (particularly those in Canada) may recall that I have previously written about the adventures of Mr. Jeffrey P. Pomerantz (currently of Vancouver, Canada) with Mr. FBAR. At that point (March 2017) it was clear that the U.S. Department of Justice planned to sue Mr. Pomerantz to collect the FBAR penalties to which it felt entitled. It is worth noting that FBAR penalties are assessed under the Bank Secrecy Act (Title 31 of U.S. laws) which is different from the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 of U.S. laws.) In order to collect FBAR penalties the U.S. Government must sue, and sue it did. The purpose of this post is to tell the story of what happened when the U.S. Government sued Mr. Pomerantz in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

But, before we begin our story, this post is more about “Civil Procedure” than it is about “Mr. FBAR” …
Bottom line: Although the U.S. Government suffered a temporary (probably) defeat, the defeat was because the Government failed to follow the rules of “Civil Procedure”. In other words, whether Mr. Pomerantz actually violated the FBAR statute was NOT the issue in this case. The issue was whether the Government followed the rules that they were required to follow in order to win their case. The Government did NOT follow the rules. Therefore, the Government lost. With that disclosure, we are no ready to begin yet another example of an adventure with Mr. FBAR.

Once upon a time in District Court in Seattle …

It appears that the hearing took place in early June of 2017. In any event, the court’s judgement was dated June 8, 2017.

Interesting fact: Mr. Jeffrey P. Pomerantz appeared “pro se” – he represented himself at the hearing. He may have had “legal advice” prior to the hearing. On the other hand, he may have had the assistance of the judge who recognized that he did NOT appear with a lawyer.

The judgement references the fact that Mr. Pomerantz sought to transfer the venue from Washington State to Washington, DC. Apparently his “lawyer of choice” was in Washington, DC. The court (for various procedural reasons) denied his request for this “change in venue”. In other words, the hearing took place in Seattle.

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Scenes from the #FBAR Marriage: what can happen if #Americansabroad share a bank account with a non-US person

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Part 1 – The problem of a U.S. person sharing financial accounts with a non-U.S. person – Probably better to NOT do it!


The above tweet references the following comment at the Isaac Brock Society:

Very timely post. After a weekend when my family was annoyed at me doing my taxes, I thought I was done, but unfortunately not. Try as I might, I could not convince my husband to remove his name from one of our joint checking accounts. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell his family. Various members deposited sums into the account for different reasons near the end of the British tax year, including the repayment of a large business loan that my entirely British husband had made out of his savings. So now instead of being done with my taxes, I have to fill in the dreaded 8938 because of money that isn’t even mine. For a while I was angry at my husband, but it is really the U.S. government with all of its fiddly rules that is at fault.

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