Treasury has issued a final Form 8938, which certain taxpayers will need to file in 2012 for the 2011 tax year. A taxpayer must file if he or she is a "specified person" with an "interest" in "specified foreign financial assets" that meet filing thresholds.
A "specified person" is a United States citizen or resident alien who is otherwise required to file a United States income tax return. A specified person only includes individuals. Therefore, domestic trusts need not file a Form 8938, and individual beneficiaries of a domestic trust are not treated as owning any specified foreign financial asset held by the trust. Grantors, however, are treated as owning the specified foreign financial assets held by their grantor trusts, subject to some exceptions.
An "interest" in a specified foreign financial asset exists if a taxpayer is considered to own the asset and would be required to report any income, gain, loss or expense for that item, regardless of whether there is actually income, gain, loss or expense for that year.
A "specified foreign financial asset" is either a financial account maintained by a foreign financial institution or an asset (not held in an account), held for investment, that is stock or a securites issued by a non-United States person, a financial instrument or contract with a non-United States issuer or counterparty or an interest in a non-United States entity. An interest in a foreign trust or estate is a specified foreign financial asset.
Specified foreign financial assets only need to be reported if they are valued at or above the filing threshold. For single taxpayers, the filing threshold is any specified foreign financial asset valued at over $50,000 on the last day of 2011 or in excess of $75,000 at any point during 2011. Higher thresholds exist for married taxpayers and for United States citizens who reside abroad. Taxpayers are permitted to use estimated values to determine whether they meet or surpass the filing threshold.