US Taxpayers residing in Mexico including US Citizens, US Permanent Residents, and US Expatriates may have to file Form 8938 with their US Income tax returns for 2012 to report their foreign financial assets. The estimated time to complete this form is 1 to 3 hours.
Several commentators have estimated that over a Million US Citizens are living in Mexico and less than 1/2 of those individuals are filing their required US tax returns and assets located in Mexico. The IRS now has several offices located in the United States with the sole function is to located individuals who are obligated to file US income tax returns and have not been fulfilling that obligation. The IRS in the past year has begun to audit expatriate taxpayers income returns and compare the information on those returns with information they have obtained from undisclosed Mexican sources.
Every taxpayer with assets located outside the US should review the instructions to this form to determine if they must file it. Read the Instructions to Form 8938 here. Failure to file the Form 8938 when required can result in severe monetary penalties and criminal prosecution.
View the 2012 tax year Form 8938 here.
Thanks, Don! As usual, a very informative article.
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