Guidelines for US owners of small foreign corporations For f-bar purposes, US individuals who own more than 50% of stock in a foreign corporation must report their cooperate financial accounts on Part II of the US owner’s f-bar. US individual’s who own 50% or less of the corporation but has signature authority over the corporate accounts must include the corporate accounts on Part IV of the individual’s f-bar.
US owners of small foreign corporations beware of different guidelines for how to include your corporate accounts on your personal FinCEN Report 114 (f-bar) and Form 8938 (FATCA).
For f-bar purposes, US individuals who own more than 50% of stock in a foreign corporation are considered owners of all corporate financial accounts. As such, all account information for each of the corporation’s foreign financial accounts must be reported on Part II of the US owner’s f-bar, as owned by the US individual. If the US individual own 50% or less of the corporation but has signature authority over the corporate accounts, the corporate accounts must be included on Part IV of the individual’s f-bar.
For 8938 purposes, in most cases a US individual is not considered to own an interest in any specified foreign financial asset held by the corporation solely as a result of his status as shareholder of the corporation. See exception to this rule in article US owners of foreign disregarded entities. Therefore, all corporate assets (both held in financial institutions and not held in financial institutions) do not need to be detailed on Form 8938. However, the fair market value of the shareholder’s stock ownership must be recorded as a foreign financial asset not held in a foreign financial institution.
