Recalde Law Firm, P.A. is a Florida law firm with an office in Miami, Florida. We advise on United States law only. We do not practice Mexican law, and we do not give Mexican tax or succession advice. We do not practice the law of any other country. Formation of a non-U.S. entity, and the local law of that jurisdiction, are matters for local counsel. We handle the U.S. architecture: classification, the documents a U.S. custodian and a U.S. court will read, and coordination with the family's tax adviser.

A foreign trust with any U.S. connection produces a year, not a single form. Someone owns it or receives from it. Someone signs a withholding certificate. A disregarded company underneath may have its own information return. This is a map of that year for advisers, family offices, and accountants. It is not a promise that a late filing will be excused. A short Spanish summary is at calendario de reporte de un foreign trust.

The trust page is Foreign Trusts. The firm assigns responsibility for the classification. The tax adviser prepares the returns. Those are different jobs, and the calendar fails when each assumes the other did both.

Forms 3520 and 3520-A

Form 3520 is the return of a U.S. person who creates a foreign trust, transfers property to one, is treated as an owner, or receives a distribution, and it is also the return for certain large foreign gifts. For a calendar-year individual it is generally due on the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the year ends, and an extension of the income-tax return can extend it. It is filed separately. It is not stapled to Form 1040. The working note is who files Forms 3520 and 3520-A, and the practice page is Form 3520 and Form 3520-A.

Form 3520-A is the annual information return of a foreign trust with a U.S. owner. A calendar-year trust is generally due on the fifteenth day of the third month, with a six-month extension on Form 7004. Waiting for the individual's April filing is how this form is late. If the trustee will not sign, the U.S. owner may have to file a substitute. A substitute is not penalty relief. Where a filing is already late, Form 3520 penalties is the related service. We do not send every reader there, and we do not predict whether relief will be granted.

Beneficiary statements

A U.S. beneficiary of a foreign non-grantor trust needs a statement of what the distribution carried, if the accumulation rules are not to treat the distribution in the default way. The trustee prepares that statement from the trust's accounts. The tax adviser uses it. A year with no statement is not a quiet year. It is a year in which the default may apply. See U.S. beneficiaries of foreign trusts and the throwback rule.

The W-8, the LLC, and the reports that belong to a U.S. person

A Form W-8BEN and a Form W-8BEN-E generally remain valid through the end of the third calendar year after the year of signature, and sooner if circumstances change. A Form W-8IMY generally remains valid until circumstances change, but the certificates attached to it, such as the grantor's Form W-8BEN, have their own expiry. Put the expiry on the calendar. A stale certificate is how withholding jumps without anyone having changed the structure. See opening a U.S. brokerage account.

If a U.S. disregarded LLC owned by a foreign person sits under the trust, Form 5472 and a pro forma Form 1120 are that LLC's filing, on the LLC's own EIN. See Form 5472 and the foreign-owned disregarded LLC. It is not filed because the trust is foreign. It is filed because the LLC is a reporting corporation.

FBAR, FinCEN Form 114, and Form 8938 are reports of a U.S. person, on the thresholds and the asset definitions those forms use. We do not restate the dollar thresholds. They depend on the form, the filing status, and where the U.S. person lives, and the tax adviser applies the current instructions. A foreign trust does not file an FBAR because it is a trust. A U.S. person who has a financial interest in, or signature authority over, foreign accounts may have to. Classification of the trust decides whether that interest exists. The returns are the tax adviser's.

Who does which piece

Before the year starts, write one page: who is a U.S. person, whether anyone is a U.S. owner, whether any U.S. person will receive a distribution, whether a disregarded U.S. LLC needs Form 5472, and when each W-8 expires. Revisit it when someone moves, when a child becomes a U.S. person, or when the trustee changes. Families from Mexico, Brazil, or Panama are not on a different calendar from families from Colombia, Chile, or Argentina. The forms follow the U.S. classification, not the passport. Home-country information returns stay with home-country counsel. We do not prepare them, and we do not describe them.