Which IRS catch-up route applies to you?

It narrows seven answers down to the procedure that most likely fits: the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures, the Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures, a reasonable-cause late FBAR filing, the Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedures, the CI Voluntary Disclosure Practice, or no catch-up at all. It also reports the covered years a submission would need today and the domestic 5% penalty estimate.

Neither. It applies the published IRS eligibility conditions to your answers so you can see the reasoning. Eligibility is decided on your actual residence history, filing history and conduct, and the non-willfulness certification is a signed statement about facts the screener cannot see.

Because the IRS states that a taxpayer with an open civil examination for any taxable year — whether or not it concerns foreign assets — is not eligible for the Streamlined procedures, and a taxpayer under IRS Criminal Investigation is likewise ineligible. It is a threshold test, so it is applied before anything else.

Three tax-return years and six FBAR years, in both cases the most recent ones whose due dates (including properly obtained extensions) have passed at the time of submission. The screener calculates them for today's date, which is why the answer changes during the year.

Only the domestic miscellaneous offshore penalty: 5% of the highest aggregate year-end balance or value of the assets subject to the penalty across the covered periods. The foreign procedure carries no such penalty where all instructions are followed, and neither track reduces tax or interest.