Forgot to report an account on FBAR since 2016 :(

[fadius]

Hello,

My wife is a US/Canada dual-citizen residing in Canada. Have been filing her FBARs since she moved to Canada.

We just realized that we forgot to include a bank account in her FBAR since 2016. This is a joint checking account that we had to create at the institution where we obtained the mortgage for the house we bought in 2016. The account was strictly used to make the monthly mortgage payments. The balance was always under 2k CAD until 2019 when I transferred 185k CAD (from a personal savings account) to pay off the mortgage. It has had a balance under 1k every since.

Option 1: report the account going forward starting with the 2023 FBAR
Option 2: amend all FBARs since 2016

Mainly concerned about penalties here. What the recommended course of action here?

Thank you

[ND]

see https://www.irs.gov/individuals/interna ... procedures

[fadius]

thanks!

To be clear, FBARs were filed for those year, but were missing that 1 account.

But it sounds like it should be ok to file amended FBARs for 2016 onwards to include that missing account.

[fadius]

when amending an FBAR to add a missing account, do I only include the missing account or also include the full list of previously reported accounts ?

[fadius]

Was able to finally find some IRS documentation that states that the full FBAR should be submitted.

Now trying to find out if it's possible to obtain a copy of previously filed FBARs as we don't seem to be able to find copies of the 2016-2019 FBARS :(.