With the luck of the Irish, Randa, Najwa, June Bechara, and I attended the FAWCO Conference in Dublin, March 21-24. It was such a wonderful, varied, thought-provoking conference that I hope every member will seriously consider attending a FAWCO Conference at least once. (Next year’s conference will be in Bern, Switzerland.) Congrats to June Bechara! She’s now one of five members on the FAWCO Finance Committee, headed by treasurer Cora Lee Findley from Saudi Arabia.

            The four pillars of FAWCO are member club support, U.S. issues, global issues, and philanthropy. I can only focus here briefly on U.S. practices. The Department of State must now provide your SSN and foreign residence information to the Department of Treasury whenever your passport is renewed.

            For this year’s income taxes, you must file Form 8938 if you meet certain foreign financial thresholds based on assets such as bank accounts, life insurance cash value, gold (but not real estate). If filing separately, you need to report an aggregate of $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any time during the year. For joint returns, those amounts are doubled. Even the warden sent out a message about this form.

             Another important form, the FBAR or TD F 90-22.1, needs to be filled out if you have signatory authority over but no financial interest in an overseas account of $10,000 or more. This information report needs to be filed by June for the previous year and is sent to the Department of the Treasury. Our executive board will now be complying with this form.

            Check with your financial advisor about the need to file these forms and read the small print in your passport. “U.S. citizens . . . are required to file and report on their worldwide income.”

Submitted to her club by FAWCO Co-Rep, Mary Ann Coxson