If an employee benefit plan has a financial interest in or signature authority over a foreign financial account, such as a bank account, brokerage account, mutual fund, trust, or other type of foreign financial account, the Bank Secrecy Act may require the plan to report the account annually to the IRS by filing Form TD F 90-22.1, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Department of the Treasury (FinCEN) issued final regulations in February governing FBAR. The final regulations provided that 2010 FBAR filings, as well as FBAR filings for prior years that were deferred pursuant to IRS Notices 2009-62 and 2010-23, are due June 30, 2011. See our WorkCite describing the regulations.
In Notice 2011-54, released on June 16th, the IRS extended the June 30 deadline to November 1, 2011 for some, but not all, filers of the FBAR. The extension applies only if both of the following requirements are met:
- The filer has signature authority over, but no financial interest in, the foreign financial account and
- The FBAR is for 2009 or a previous calendar year for which reporting was extended under the 2009 and 2010 IRS Notices.
For all filers, the deadline for 2010 reports remains June 30, 2011 . Also, the substantive requirements for who is required to file an FBAR are not changed by this notice.