Following a request to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax and payment filing relief in the wake of Hurricane Helene, the American Institute of CPAs has submitted a letter to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) urging them to implement a policy to offer automatic filing extensions for Reporting of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) and Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reports to victims of major disasters.
In the past, FinCEN has provided FBAR filing relief to those impacted by disasters, however there is no mechanism for automatic filing relief in those situations, nor have they been consistent with the IRS when granting this relief. Additionally, given its recent implementation, FinCEN has not offered disaster relief for any BOI reports due. Currently, taxpayers face an FBAR filing deadline of October 15, while hundreds of thousands more still have a year-end, 90-day or 30-day BOI filing requirement.
“The AICPA recommends that FinCEN adopt a policy of automatically granting FBAR and BOI filing postponements to coincide with the IRS’s extended due dates when the IRS grants postponements under section 7508A. The relief provided by FinCEN should match the relief provided by the IRS for other filings, both in terms of the extended due dates and the geographic scope,” says Sue Coffey, CEO of Public Accounting for the AICPA, in the letter.
“Victims of natural disasters should not have to endure the added stress and uncertainty of various filings with agencies such as the IRS and FinCEN,” added Melanie Lauridsen, Vice President of Tax Policy and Advocacy for the AICPA. “Creating consistency and parity for automatic relief between these two agencies would alleviate pressure on taxpayers who are already struggling to rebuild.”
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Tags: Accounting
