Major Changes for FBAR and Tax Return Due Dates

On July 31, 2015, President Obama signed into law H.R. 3236, the “Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015.” In addition to providing a 3-month, stop-gap reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund and transferring over $8 billion to the Fund, the Act alters a number of tax-return due dates—for instance, moving the due date for partnership tax returns a month ahead of the due date for corporate tax returns—and changes the due date for filing an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) to match the filing deadline for individual tax returns.

The Act provides a number of changes that simplify reporting deadlines and improve tax information flow. Proponents of the Act maintain that these changes will reduce the number of extensions and amended individual and corporate tax returns filed in future years. The AICPA, quick to praise the legislation, noted that it will make “the information flow between corporations, partnerships and individuals more logical.”

Among the more notable changes in reporting due dates, the Act provides the following:

• The deadline for filing an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) is moved from June 30th to April 15th, and an extension of up to 6 months is made available;
• The due date for calendar-year partnership and S-corporation tax returns is moved up one month to March 15th;and
• The due date for calendar-year corporate tax returns has been moved back one month to April 15th.

Notably, the Act provides a significant change to the due date for filing an FBAR. That due date has historically been June 30th, and no extension was available. Because the FBAR is and was a Title 31 Bank Secrecy Act filing obligation, its filing deadline was not tied to the Form 1040 filing deadline, despite the fact that information required to be reported on the FBAR overlaps significantly with information required to be reported with Form 1040. The Act now conforms the FBAR due date with the due date for individual tax returns, and provides for an extension of that due date that corresponds to extensions available for Form 1040 filings. It also provides for the waiver of a penalty for failure to timely request this new extension for any taxpayer required to file an FBAR for the first time.

The text of the Act can be linked here.