On March 1, 2016, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed rules that would revise and clarify certain provisions regarding the filing of Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). The rules, if finalized as proposed, would apply mainly to financial professionals who file FBARs due to employment responsibilities. Generally, the rules would: remove prohibitions that limit the information reported with respect to situations when a filer has 25 or more foreign financial accounts and require detailed account information for all foreign financial accounts; eliminate the requirement for officers and employees of institutions to report on institutional accounts for which they have signature authority, without a financial interest, due solely to their employment, so long as the employer has an FBAR filing obligation; and require institutions to maintain a list of all officers and employees with signature authority over such foreign financial accounts. Comments are due to FinCEN 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which has not happened as of the date of this writing.

The FinCEN press release can be found at: https://www.fincen.gov/whatsnew/pdf/20160301.pdf

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking can be found at: https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/frn/pdf/FBAR_NPRM030116.pdf