How do you perform an offshore asset search at the time of your high-net-worth divorce? If your spouse is a taxpayer in the U.S., your spouse may have to make tax filings about assets parked offshore. Among other things, your offshore asset search should elicit any of your spouse’s tax filings about offshore assets. You can ask your spouse to authorize the IRS to send you the tax filings.  However, you might need a court order compelling your spouse to give you the authorization.

The authorizations you could need from your spouse are: IRS Form 8821 (Tax Information Authorization) &/or IRS Form 4506 (Request For Copy of Tax Return).  Under certain circumstances, an IRS Form 2848 might be needed to facilitate IRS disclosure. You/your divorce attorney would forward the appropriate IRS authorization form[s] signed by your spouse, to the IRS. Then, the IRS could supply you with your spouse’s tax filings about offshore assets (if any).  Some tax filings about offshore assets are:

  1. Form TD F 90-22.1/FinCEN Form 114  (“Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts” a.k.a.”FBAR”);
  2. Form 8865 (Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships);
  3. Form 8938 (“Statement of Specialized Foreign Assets”)
  4. Form 5471 (“Information Return of a U.S. Person With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations”);
  5. Form 3520 (“Annual Return To Report Transactions With Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts”);
  6. Form 3520-A (“Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust With a U.S. Owner”).

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Copyright 2020 Fred L. Abrams