How many years of UK accounts do I need to report in a streamlined submission?

Two periods apply. The IRS requires tax returns, with information returns such as Form 8938, for the most recent three years for which the return due date has passed, and FBARs for the most recent six years for which the FBAR due date has passed. Your account inventory therefore has to go back six years, even though the tax returns cover only three.

Do I report a UK account I closed several years ago?

Yes, if it was open at any time during a calendar year inside the six-year FBAR window. The FBAR test applies at any time during the year, so a closed account is reported at its maximum value for each year it existed. If it closed before the three-year tax return period began, it will not appear on a Form 8938.

Is my ISA reportable to the IRS even though it is tax-free in the UK?

Yes. A cash ISA is a bank account and a stocks and shares ISA is a securities account, each maintained at a financial institution outside the United States. UK tax-free status does not change FBAR or Form 8938 reporting, and income arising inside the ISA still has to be considered when the US returns are prepared.

Do I have to report my UK company's bank account on my own FBAR?

If you own, directly or indirectly, more than 50% of the total value of the company's shares or more than 50% of the voting power, you have a financial interest in its accounts and report them on your FBAR. You also report them if you simply have signature authority. Form 8938 treats corporate assets differently, and the company is normally reported through Form 5471.

Does a joint account with my British spouse count in full or only my half?

In full. Each US person who jointly owns a foreign account reports the entire value on the FBAR, and the Form 8938 instructions likewise require the maximum value of the whole jointly held account. It makes no difference that the other owner is not a US person or that most of the money came from them.

Will HMRC already know about the UK accounts I forgot?

Very possibly. GOV.UK confirms that banks and building societies tell HMRC about interest paid to customers, and Self Assessment filers are expected to report that interest on their returns. When a forgotten account is found during scoping, we check whether its income was declared in the UK and correct the UK return where it was not.

IRS Streamlined Filing Experts: Scoping UK Accounts

IRS Streamlined Filing Experts start every engagement with a scoping exercise: a complete inventory of the UK and other non-US accounts a client owned, shared, controlled or could sign on, mapped against the years the submission has to cover. Scoping decides which accounts enter the package and for which years. It comes before a single return is drafted, because the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures call for two sets of filings over two different periods, and one account can belong in one set and not the other.

In the submissions we prepare for wealthy Americans living in the UK, the list a client brings to the first meeting is almost never the list that ends up in the package. Scoping exists to find the accounts they have forgotten: the fixed-term deposit that matured four years ago, the club account they sign on, the personal company with its own bank mandate, the share plan nominee account an employer opened for them.

What do IRS Streamlined Filing Experts mean by scoping your UK accounts?

Scoping is the process of establishing, with evidence, every account and financial asset that must appear somewhere in a streamlined submission. A scoping schedule is a single working document that lists each non-US account connected to the taxpayer, the legal test that makes it reportable, the calendar years in which it was open, and its maximum value in each of those years. The FBARs, the Forms 8938, the income figures in the returns and the certification narrative are all built from it.

It is a separate stage for a practical reason. The IRS describes the procedures at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/streamlined-filing-compliance-procedures and makes clear that returns filed this way are processed like any other return, without a closing agreement, and may be selected for audit. A package later found to have left accounts out has nothing to fall back on, so the inventory has to be right before anything is filed.

Under the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures, the IRS states that an eligible taxpayer who complies with all the instructions will not be subject to failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties, accuracy-related penalties, information return penalties or FBAR penalties. The foreign procedures carry no offshore penalty; the 5% miscellaneous offshore penalty belongs to the Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures only.

Why are there two different windows in a streamlined submission?

The procedures set two periods, and they are not the same length. The IRS page for taxpayers residing outside the United States, at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-taxpayers-residing-outside-the-united-states, requires delinquent or amended tax returns for each of the most recent 3 years for which the US tax return due date (or properly applied for extended due date) has passed, together with all required information returns such as Forms 5471 and 8938. Separately, it requires any delinquent FBARs for each of the most recent 6 years for which the FBAR due date has passed.

The FBAR window is twice as long as the return window, and the two filings follow different rules. The FBAR is a Bank Secrecy Act report filed with FinCEN. Form 8938 is a tax form attached to the income tax return. The IRS sets the differences out side by side at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/comparison-of-form-8938-and-fbar-requirements. That produces several situations in which one account is in scope for one filing and not the other:

An account closed in the fourth, fifth or sixth year back is inside the FBAR window for the years it was open, but outside the three-year tax return period entirely, so it never appears on a Form 8938 in the package.
An account over which the client has signature authority but no ownership is reportable on the FBAR in every year of the six, and is not reported on Form 8938 at all.
Shares in a non-US company held directly, outside any account, are a specified foreign financial asset for Form 8938 but are not a financial account for FBAR purposes.
An account belonging to a company the client owns more than 50% of goes on the client's FBAR, while on the tax return side the company is normally dealt with through Form 5471 and not as a line on Form 8938.

The windows also move. The FBAR is due on April 15 following the calendar year reported, with an automatic extension to October 15, and the tax return window depends on whether an extension was properly applied for. We fix both windows on day one and check them again immediately before filing, because a due date passing in the meantime rolls a window forward by a year.

Which tests pull a UK account into scope?

For the FBAR, the tests come from the FinCEN regulations and are explained in the IRS FBAR Reference Guide at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5569.pdf. A US person must file if they have a financial interest in, or signature or other authority over, any financial account outside the United States and the aggregate amount in the accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. Each of the following pulls an account onto the schedule:

Financial interest as owner of record or holder of legal title. This applies whether the account is maintained for the client's own benefit or for someone else's.
Accounts held by an agent or nominee. If another person holds legal title but acts on the client's behalf, the client has a financial interest.
Joint ownership. Where two or more people jointly maintain an account, each US person has a financial interest and each must report the entire value of the account, not a half share. A joint account with a British spouse is reported in full by the American spouse.
Signature or other authority. This is the authority, alone or with another individual, to control the disposition of assets in the account by direct communication with the institution. A power of attorney that has never been used still counts.
Accounts of a company the client controls. A US person has a financial interest in an account where the owner of record is a corporation in which they own, directly or indirectly, more than 50% of the total value of the shares or more than 50% of the voting power. Equivalent more-than-50% tests apply to partnerships and other entities.
Accounts closed during the window. The test looks at any time during the calendar year, so an account that existed for part of a year and was then closed is still reportable for that year at its maximum value.

Form 8938 uses a different idea of an interest. The instructions at https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8938 tie reporting to assets whose income, gains, losses, deductions, credits, gross proceeds or distributions would be reported on the client's own return. They state that in most cases a shareholder does not own an interest in an asset held by a corporation solely because of being a shareholder. Joint owners who are not spouses, and spouses filing separately, each report the maximum value of the entire account. The form also asks whether an account was opened or closed during the tax year, so opening and closing dates are a column in our schedule.

Senior bankers raise a specific point: signature authority over an employer's accounts. The FBAR Reference Guide lists exceptions for officers and employees with signature authority but no financial interest, including employees of certain regulated banks and of entities with equity securities, or American depositary receipts, listed on a US national securities exchange. We never assume an exception applies: we identify the employing entity, confirm which condition it meets and record the conclusion.

How are UK pensions, ISAs, share plan accounts and private bank sub-accounts scoped?

The FBAR Reference Guide defines a financial account broadly: bank accounts including savings accounts and time deposits, securities and brokerage accounts, insurance or annuity policies with a cash value, mutual funds or similar pooled funds, and any other account maintained with a foreign financial institution. It also makes the point that it is the location of the account, not the nationality of the institution, that makes an account foreign.

ISAs are in scope. A cash ISA is a bank account and a stocks and shares ISA is a securities account, both maintained at a UK institution. The UK tax-free status of the wrapper has no bearing on FBAR or Form 8938 reporting, and clients leave ISAs off their own list because nothing about them appears on a UK tax return.

UK pensions need care. The retirement plan exceptions in the guide refer to plans qualified under specific sections of the US Internal Revenue Code, and its own examples treat foreign retirement accounts in other countries as reportable. We therefore schedule UK personal pensions and workplace defined contribution pots that have an identifiable account and value. For Form 8938, the instructions say to report the interest in a foreign pension plan itself, not the assets the plan holds, and allow the value of distributions received in the year to be used where a fair market value is not readily accessible. Defined benefit entitlements are reviewed scheme by scheme.

Employer share plan accounts are a frequent omission. Where vested shares or plan cash sit in a nominee account with a UK-located plan administrator, that is a securities account outside the United States. Where the same shares are held through a US-located broker, it is not a foreign account. Each plan is tested separately.

Platform cash is part of the platform account's maximum value, not a separate line. Private bank multi-currency arrangements are different. FBAR records must include the number or other designation identifying each account, so where a private bank issues separately numbered sterling, dollar and euro sub-accounts, we list and value each one as its own line.

Where do we look for accounts a client has forgotten?

A client's memory is a starting point, not a source. Discovery relies on documents and official records that exist independently of what the client recalls.

UK Self Assessment returns for every year in the six-year window. A year-on-year change in interest or dividends often marks an account opened or closed.
Bank and building society interest certificates and annual tax statements, which we request from each institution for every year, including for closed accounts.
Companies House. The free service described at https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company shows company information, current and resigned officers and document images. We search for every directorship held during the window, then establish who owned more than 50% of each company and who was on its bank mandate.
UK credit reference files. The Information Commissioner's Office explains at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/credit/ that individuals can request a free statutory report from the main credit reference agencies. The file records credit and account relationships and previous addresses.
Mail from previous addresses. Statements for rarely used accounts keep going to an old flat, so we ask for every address in the window.
Dormant account tracing. The GOV.UK page on the Dormant Assets Scheme at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-dormant-accounts-scheme refers customers to My Lost Account, a free service that searches banks, building societies and NS&I through one application.
Payslips, share plan statements and pension annual statements, which reveal employer-opened accounts the client never logged into.

How is the maximum-value schedule built and what is the aggregate $10,000 test?

The maximum value of an account, for FBAR purposes, is a reasonable approximation of the greatest value of currency and non-monetary assets in the account during the calendar year. The Reference Guide allows reliance on periodic statements issued at least quarterly, provided they fairly reflect the maximum value. The method is fixed: determine the maximum in the currency of the account, then convert that figure into US dollars using the Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange for the last day of the calendar year. Form 8938 likewise uses the exchange rate on the last day of the tax year, even for an asset disposed of earlier in the year.

The $10,000 test is an aggregate test, and it is widely misunderstood. The IRS explains at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar that an FBAR is required when the accounts together exceed $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. The Reference Guide illustrates it with three accounts holding $3,000, $1,000 and $8,000: all three must be reported, although no single account exceeded $10,000. An account producing no income is still reportable. For a wealthy client the threshold is passed many times over, so every account on the schedule is reported, however small.

Form 8938 has its own, much higher thresholds for taxpayers living abroad. The IRS comparison page gives them as more than $200,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $300,000 at any time during the year for an unmarried taxpayer or one filing separately, and more than $400,000 or more than $600,000 respectively for married taxpayers filing jointly. Our schedule therefore carries, for each account and year, the maximum value in local currency, the year-end rate, the dollar figure and the year-end balance, so both tests run from one document.

How does the scoping schedule feed Form 14653?

Form 14653 is the Certification by U.S. Person Residing Outside of the U.S. that accompanies a foreign streamlined submission. The IRS requires the taxpayer to certify that they are eligible, that all required FBARs have now been filed, and that the failure to file tax returns, report all income, pay all tax and submit all required information returns, including FBARs, resulted from non-willful conduct. The IRS defines non-willful conduct as conduct due to negligence, inadvertence or mistake, or conduct that is the result of a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law.

The certification narrative asks for specific reasons and for the whole story, including favourable and unfavourable facts, and it asks the taxpayer to explain the source of funds in all of their foreign financial accounts and assets and their contacts with them. The word that matters is all. The statement is signed under penalties of perjury, and the schedule gives it structure: when each account was opened, why, with what money and how actively it was used.

An incomplete inventory damages the certification twice over. The taxpayer has certified that all required FBARs were filed when they were not, and an account that surfaces later invites the question of why it was left out. An oversight is far harder to present as non-willful once it has been repeated in a signed statement, which is why we do not draft a certification until the schedule is signed off.

What does the UK side of scoping involve?

The same inventory is tested against the client's UK position, because a forgotten account may also have produced interest or dividends that never reached a UK return. GOV.UK explains at https://www.gov.uk/apply-tax-free-interest-on-savings/how-you-pay-tax-on-savings-interest that banks and building societies tell HMRC about the interest they pay, and that people who complete a Self Assessment return report their interest on it.

For each account we check that the income on the UK returns agrees with the certificates obtained during discovery, that accounts held outside the UK were reported on the foreign pages where required, and that company accounts are consistent with those filed at Companies House. Where a difference appears, the UK return is corrected as part of the same engagement. Foreign tax credits claimed on the US returns rely on the UK figures being right.

What does scoping look like for an investment banker with fifteen accounts?

The following is an illustration, not a real client. Assume a US citizen who has lived in London for eleven years, is a managing director at an investment bank, is married to a British citizen who is not a US person, and has never filed a US return or FBAR. Assume the three-year return window covers 2022 to 2024 and the six-year FBAR window covers 2019 to 2024. She arrives with a list of six accounts. Discovery produces fifteen.

Sole sterling current account: in scope for all six FBAR years and for Form 8938 in the three return years.
Joint current account with her husband: reported at its entire value on her FBARs and her Forms 8938, even though he is not a US person.
Cash ISA and stocks and shares ISA: both in scope for both filings; neither was on her list.
Private bank relationship with separately numbered sterling, dollar and euro sub-accounts: three lines, each valued in its own currency.
Investment platform account: one line, uninvested cash included in the maximum value.
Share plan nominee account with a UK-located administrator, found from her payslips: in scope for both filings.
Workplace pension and a personal pension from a previous employer, found from a statement sent to an old address: scheduled for the FBAR and reported as foreign pension interests on Form 8938.
A fixed-term deposit that matured and closed in 2020, found from a fall in interest on her UK return: in scope for the 2019 and 2020 FBARs only, and outside the return window.
The bank account of a UK company in which she holds 60% of the shares, found through Companies House: on her FBAR for all six years; the company itself is addressed through Form 5471 in the return years.
The account of a rowing club where she is treasurer and a signatory: signature authority only, so on the FBAR for each year and not on Form 8938.
A building society account opened as a student, located through dormant account tracing: small, but reportable because the aggregate test is met.

Her signature authority over her employer's accounts is examined separately; in this illustration the employer has securities listed on a US exchange, so the exception is documented and those accounts are not reported. The result is a fifteen-line schedule feeding six FBARs, with a smaller set carried onto three Forms 8938. Interest on the fixed-term deposit and the building society account is then checked against her UK returns. Nine of the fifteen accounts were not on her original list.

What should a scoping checklist contain?

The two windows, stated as specific years, with the date on which each will next roll forward.
For each account: legal owner, joint owners, the test that makes it reportable, account number or designation, institution name and address, type, opening and closing dates.
Maximum value for each year in the account currency, the Treasury year-end rate applied, the dollar figure, and the year-end balance.
Every directorship and shareholding, with ownership percentage and bank mandate position for each company.
Every account the client can sign on without owning: employer, club, charity, family member, partnership.
A cross-check of each income-producing account against the UK Self Assessment return for the same year.
A signed confirmation from the client that the schedule is complete to the best of their knowledge.

Where does scoping go wrong?

The failure mode we see most often is a single three-year list applied to everything, which silently drops accounts closed in the earlier FBAR years. The second is ownership thinking: listing what the client owns and leaving out what the client can sign on or controls through a company. Joint accounts are reported at half value. ISAs and pensions are omitted because they are tax-free or tax-deferred in the UK. Multi-currency sub-accounts are collapsed into one line. Year-end balances replace maximum values, understating any account run down before December. An employer exception is assumed without checking which entity employs the client. All are prevented by treating scoping as its own stage with its own sign-off.

What stays outside the inventory?

Not everything a client owns belongs on the schedule, and we cover non-reportable items in a separate article. In brief, the location rule cuts both ways: the Reference Guide notes that an account at a branch of a foreign bank physically located in the United States is not a foreign financial account. Such items are noted on the schedule as considered and excluded, with the reason.

What happens once the scope is settled?

Once the schedule is signed off, the delinquent FBARs are filed electronically through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing System, where the late-filing explanation indicates that the filing is made in conjunction with an IRS compliance option. The three years of returns, the Forms 8938 and Form 14653 are all drawn from the same schedule. A streamlined submission is only as reliable as the inventory beneath it, and for a client with a dozen or more accounts that inventory is compliance work in its own right.