to have had enough of FBAR and streamlining....

[Morphene]

I just can't take anymore. If I had known being married to someone with dual American British nationality would be this much hassle I wouldn't have done it.

We knew nothing of this FBAR business till about a year ago and after months and bloody months of searching all our records, getting a social security number, discovering yet more forms, DH is finally at the point of submitting the damn thing.

And we don't even know what will happen with it....if our case will be accepted or if they are going to rock up a some point in the future demanding huge fines or even jail time.

Obviously IABU but bloody hell.

I'm not familiar with FBAR beyond a 2 second google but my company (financial services) has had issues with FATCA where the IRS gets cross at companies who hold money for US Persons, even if that person is not longer resident in the US and pays full taxes in their country of residence. We forced out all our customers who came under the definition of US Person, because we don't want to deal with the IRS (as we're already heavily regulated at a UK and EU level).

It seems like the IRS are intent on making life harder for Americans overseas. You have my sympathies

So I assume he has been failing to file his forms and you are worried about fines.

I assume he must do his own tax returns too otherwise his accountant would have notified him of the need to file FBAR.

I am always amazed that when people move to other countries when they don't seek legal or financial advice about what they should be doing bearing in mind it will not be the same as in their home country in most cases.

Have you ascertained what the penalties are for non-filing?

He was born and has always lived in the UK. I didn't even know he had American citizenship when we got together.

He doesn't work (SAHP) but does, of course, have 'foreign' UK bank accounts.

I am amazed that the IRS can take MY money because my DH who has never lived in America has a joint UK bank account with me.

penalties only exist if they decide you were willful in failing to file. Given we had no idea we needed to do this till a bank contacted us about DH's citizenship, I hope they will correctly decide we were non-willful. If they don't, I get the impression it would bankrupt us instantly.

I was in your DH's position a few years ago. I am also duel UK/US. I was moved to the UK as a child, I decided to return home with my DH. I had never in my life filed a US Tax return, even though I should have from the age of 18. I had to complete 5 years worth before we moved back to the US.

It was just a paperwork exercise as I never earned enough for it to be a problem.

When we moved we closed all our UK accounts as we have no intention of coming back.

I think I would be coping better if it was just paperwork, but there is this value judgement on whether or not you hadn't been filing tax returns for the last 20 odd years because you are a liar and a cheat, or because you had no clue you were supposed to.

It turns out DH has never actually failed to pay them anything he should have, because he has always been under the threshold to pay anything and for many years recently has been under the reporting threshold too. So they haven't missed out....except on a bunch of uninteresting paperwork.

I don't think that's really the point though.

I am fairly sure you have nothing to worry about, there is no benefit in the IRS chasing him down,

I can't believe there is either, but can common sense prevail in matters of tax?

Apparently they don't even let you know the outcome, they just come after you or don't.

It is going to be 2018 before I might feel safe to put all this behind us.

Can he give up his US citizenship if he doesn't actually use it ?

You can't give up your citizenship until your tax affairs are in order....which probably makes sense if you are trying to catch crooks...though not so much if you are just ordinary citizens of other countries.