from Patrick McKenzie | by Patrick McKenzie

Well that is particularly interesting for those of us USians abroad who might or might not be timely in filing FBARs.

I sort of hope they won’t start copy/pasting the $10k/year penalty on everyone who failed to file out of frustration that they are no longer able to get million-dollar penalties from international businessmen with other-than-on-the-ball accountants.

(If I were writing these regulations I’d remove 90% of FBAR scope and reduce the penalty by 95%+ unless non-filing was designed to further a crime.)

“What’s in scope?” My daughter’s $400 savings account where she deposits e.g. birthday gifts from grandparents, among other things. (Because she has over $10k in “overseas” assets because her college savings account is held at the bank across the street.)

“I bet Japan has something like this, too.” It is somewhat more reasonable: if you are a Japanese taxpayer and have more than $500k in overseas assets, you are required to file a breakdown (not of accounts but of gross assets) once a year, which gets compared with tax return.

They thing which the National Tax Agency wants to avoid is mostly people sheltering financial assets in low tax jurisdictions and repatriating income from those assets, which is… surprisingly popular in the Tokyo finance community.