"quiet disclosure" - what if I filed FBAR?

CdnAmerican · Post by **CdnAmerican** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:23 am

I was in a similar spot when I learned about the 3520s about three years ago, and had to backfile 6 years (17 forms!). Not fun at all. Using help on this site (especially from the "Taking a Stab at 3520" thread) I was able to do it all on my own, though it wasn't pretty and I did make a couple of filing errors that I had to correct (with a threat of a penalty, but no actual penalty demanded).

I did make one significant error that caused me to lose a lot of sleep and hair. I put all my forms in a single envelope, across trusts and years. This realy confused the IRS, and when they asked for more info I did the same thing .. the problem is that each trust and trust year are accounted for separately in their computers. So, when I sent one letter to account for my backfiling, that letter was only attached to one of the trusts.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but what I eventually learned was to file my trusts in separate envelopes, then putting all those envelopes together in a bigger envelope. That's kind of like the solution of staggering the mailings, and probably either way works fine.

But this is just a small hint to help you avoid that pitfall. Good luck!

gpancio · Post by **gpancio** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:45 am

@sunnysga and @CdnAmerican

Any and all tips/help is very much appreciated! As you know it is a pretty stressful thing to go through, with the threat of multiple $10,000 penalties over your head (esp. when those penalties would be much much more than the accounts are even worth!)

I'm slowily going through the 3520/A's, year by year, account by account. It will take a while thus I might stagger the mailings anyway, just to get some on the way while I work on the others.

TFSAs (intetest-only) seem relatively easy but so far I don't really understand how to report both transfers to an RESP (are they gratuitous? I guess so) nor the "gains" ie increase in value of the funds (I have one of those BMO portfolios of funds)

uugghh there's also CESG and "re-invested dividends" to deal with.
I'll be searching the forums for help.

sunnysga · Post by **sunnysga** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:41 am

May I suggest you start a new thread if you have questions about 3520 so that the title header matches the subject (for easier searching). :)

CdnAmerican · Post by **CdnAmerican** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:06 pm

I did an outline of where you put different pieces of the trust (CESG, dividends, interest, contributions) on another thread, though I can't remember where right now. If you search for 3520, it should be around. It's very tricky at first but you get the hang of it after awhile.

gpancio · Post by **gpancio** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:30 am

Thank you. Yes I do searches for 3520- there are a lot of threads to sift through!
I'll specifically look for your posts @CdnAmerican.

I might start a new thread for specific questions.

gpancio · Post by **gpancio** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:36 am

It looks like this was your (CdnAmerican) post on how to fill out 3520/A:

http://forums.serbinski.com/viewtopic.p ... highlight=

Posted link here for easier reference.

CdnAmerican · Post by **CdnAmerican** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:26 pm

Yep, that's the one. Note that for first-timers, there is a better thread which I also allude to near the top of mine.