Sometimes we have to ask for information you wouldn’t normally expect to provide. For example, if you own foreign investment funds (and these can be held in your securities or investment account, or even the foreign retirement account that you thought was tax-free), we have to ask for a list of all the securities you own, and often we need to know all the transactions for each fund, for each year we are reporting. So, if you have foreign investments or a foreign retirement account, please be prepared to provide detailed annual statements for any and all years that we are preparing US tax returns. This advance audit of your investments works to identify reporting requirements, that an IRS agent with experience in this area might request. And yes, we have to tally the income of each fund, for each year. The take home: We do not ask for unnecessary information; we are motivated to make the process of preparing your US tax returns as smooth as possible, while reducing risk along the way.