U.S. Tax Alert: IRS Provides Relief for Certain Foreign Trust Reporting. Rev. Proc. 2020–17 And What it Means to You

Who Will Ben­e­fit From Attend­ing This Webi­nar? This webi­nar is intend­ed for U.S. cit­i­zens and res­i­dents with for­eign trust or trust-like arrange­ments. The con­tent is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant to U.S. tax and Cana­di­an tax advi­sors who are assist­ing their clients in address­ing U.S. tax and cross-bor­der impli­ca­tions.   Top­ics Cov­ered in This Webi­nar. U.S. cit­i­zens and Green card hold­ers liv­ing in Cana­da often open TFSA and RESP accounts. The U.S. tax treat­ment of these accounts is uncer­tain in that some U.S. tax advi­sors are treat­ing those accounts as for­eign grantor trusts. As a result, two inter­na­tion­al infor­ma­tion return fil­ings were required: Form 3520‑A, Annu­al Infor­ma­tion Return of For­eign Trust With a U.S. Own­er and Form 3520, Annu­al Return To Report Trans­ac­tions With For­eign Trusts and Receipt of Cer­tain For­eign Gifts. The IRS relief is very time­ly and will help many U.S. cit­i­zens and Green card hold­ers sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce their tax return prepa­ra­tion and fil­ing fees — a very pos­i­tive devel­op­ment for tax­pay­ers! Our posi­tion has always been that these accounts should be treat­ed as sav­ings accounts and, pro­vid­ed that the income was prop­er­ly and time­ly report­ed on U.S. tax return, as well as the prop­er dis­clo­sure of such accounts was made on Form Fin­CEN 114 (FBAR) and Form 8938 (FATCA form), as applic­a­ble, no report­ing on Forms 3520 and 3520‑A was required. The IRS has effec­tive­ly con­curred with our tax fil­ing posi­tion.   Here’s just a sam­ple of what we’ll cov­er dur­ing this webi­nar: 

• Review of Rev­enue Pro­ce­dure 2020–17;
• Types of “for­eign trusts” and arrangements/accounts cov­ered by the IRS guid­ance;
• U.S. tax and report­ing require­ments applic­a­ble to for­eign trusts and arrange­ments / accounts addressed in the IRS guid­ance;
• Pas­sive For­eign Invest­ment Com­pa­ny (PFIC) report­ing;
• How do you claim your penal­ties for missed Form 3520‑A/3520 report­ing (if the IRS has assessed them and you may have paid them pre­vi­ous­ly)?;
• Statute of lim­i­ta­tions con­sid­er­a­tions;
• Penal­ty pro­tec­tion and tak­ing aggres­sive tax return fil­ing posi­tions;
• Tax com­pli­ance tips and prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions;
• … and more!

  To learn more, please reg­is­ter and gain the knowl­edge you need to help your clients claim their mon­ey back and relieve their 2019 tax year U.S. fil­ings. Plus, you can earn up to 1 CPD cred­it (rel­e­vant to Cana­di­an CPAs).  We hope you join us!Register

Very tru­ly yours, U.S. TAX IQ Team