Cross-border tax failures have a recurring shape: the preparer did competent work on the facts they had, and the problem lived in a fact they were never given. The missed account, the overseas pension nobody mentioned, the small business stake that didn’t seem tax-relevant. The disclosure system that applies to Americans abroad — covered in The Second Filing System: US Disclosure Forms Most Expats Never Hear About — runs on exactly the facts that never appear in a standard document pile.

You can close most of that gap yourself, in about an hour, with a one-page briefing you hand to any preparer at the start of an engagement. This article is the template. It pairs with the record system in The One-Page Record System for a Cross-Border Life — that article is about what to keep year over year; this one is about what to say at the start.

Why a written briefing beats a good conversation

Three reasons this works better than relying on the preparer’s intake questions:

First, it doesn’t depend on the preparer asking. A cross-border specialist will interrogate you anyway — but with a generalist, the briefing substitutes for the questions a domestic intake process doesn’t include. It upgrades whoever you hire.

Second, it creates a record that you disclosed. If a question ever arises later about what your preparer knew, a written briefing dated at the start of the engagement is a very different evidentiary position than a recollection of a phone call. Failures to tell a preparer about foreign accounts have featured in penalty cases as evidence against taxpayers — the same patterns described in What the IRS Reads as Willfulness: The Patterns That Turn a Mistake Into Concealment. The briefing is the inverse: documented openness.

Third, writing it forces the inventory. Most people discover at least one forgotten item the first time they list everything — the dormant account from a previous city, the joint account with a parent, the pension from a two-year job a decade ago. Forgotten doesn’t mean exempt, which is its own classic mistake: The Accounts You Forgot Still Count: Aggregation, Dormant Accounts, and Your Non-US Spouse.

What goes on the page

Six sections. Short answers, no documents attached — this is a map, not the territory.

1. Status and residency. Citizenships held (including by birth, even if never exercised). Green card history, including expired or abandoned cards — “abandoned” has a formal meaning, and an informal abandonment is a classic trap worth telling a preparer about. Country of residence now, and any moves in the tax year. Days spent in the US, if you track them.

2. Every financial account, by country. Bank, brokerage, retirement, and savings accounts — including dormant ones, employer-opened ones, and joint accounts with anyone, US person or not. For each: country, institution, account type, rough size, and whose names are on it. Don’t pre-filter for relevance; small and dormant accounts still count toward aggregate thresholds, and the preparer needs the full list to do that math.

3. Registered and tax-favored plans. Anything your country of residence treats specially — retirement plans, tax-free savings vehicles, education plans. Name them by local type. These are precisely the accounts where local tax treatment and US tax treatment diverge most — the pattern in Why Your Bank’s “Tax-Free” Label Means Nothing to the IRS and, for Canadians, The TFSA Trap: Tax-Free in Canada, Taxable in the US.

4. Investments and ownership. Foreign mutual funds or ETFs held anywhere, including inside the plans in section 3. Any ownership stake in a non-US company, partnership, or trust — at any percentage, including family businesses where you’re a passive name on the registry. Rental or other foreign property that produces income.

5. Money that moved. Large gifts or inheritances received from non-US persons. Major transfers between your own accounts across borders. Account openings and closings during the year.

6. History. Years of US returns filed and not filed, to your knowledge. Whether foreign account reports have ever been filed. Any past IRS correspondence. This is the section people are tempted to soften — don’t. A preparer who learns about missed years at the start can sequence the fix properly, as the catch-up routes in The Three Ways Back: Catch-Up Paths for Missed Foreign Account Filings, Compared require; one who learns mid-engagement may have to unwind work already done.

How to use it

Hand it over before work is quoted, and ask one question: “Given this, what does my filing actually involve this year?” The answer tells you nearly everything about whether you’re in the right hands. A cross-border-capable preparer will respond to the page with specifics and follow-up questions. A response that waves the foreign items through — “we’ll just attach the extra form” — is the signal discussed in What Good Cross-Border Tax Help Actually Looks Like.

Then update it once a year. New accounts, closed accounts, life changes — five minutes alongside the record system, and next year’s briefing is done before tax season starts.

One honest caveat: a briefing makes any preparer better, but it can’t make a domestic preparer into a specialist. If your own page shows several entries in sections 3 and 4, that’s not a documentation problem — it’s a complexity signal, and the page itself is telling you what kind of help to hire.

Educational content only. The checklist describes information generally relevant to cross-border situations — it isn’t exhaustive for every case, and what your filings require depends on facts a qualified cross-border tax professional should assess.