IB01 (iShares $ Treasury Bond 0-1yr UCITS ETF (Accumulating)) is a conventional Ireland-domiciled UCITS fund. Such funds commonly meet a §1297 passive-income or passive-asset test even when they track ultra-short US Treasury bills through an Irish fund vehicle; confirm the vehicle's structure and annual facts before filing Form 8621.
Because it is an accumulating share class it pays you nothing along the way, which makes the default §1291 treatment more expensive, not less.
No card · free draft · a CPA typically charges $1,200–$3,000+ for Form 8621 work; Atamatax is a flat $499.
If IB01 is confirmed as a PFIC, you may need a separate Form 8621. For supported inputs, Atamatax generates the official PDF with computed fields filled; review its notes and complete any remaining fields before filing outside Atamatax.
IB01 pays out nothing, so there may be no cash distribution to enter in a §1291 excess-distribution calculation while you hold. Separate annual Form 8621 reporting can still apply.
Mark-to-market (§1296) taxes the annual paper gain as ordinary income — and an accumulating fund sends you no cash to pay it with. Worth planning before you elect.
IB01 tracks ultra-short US Treasury bills through an Irish fund vehicle. It is where people park money they consider uninvested, which is why it gets missed. A conventional foreign short-duration fund typically earns passive interest and commonly meets §1297; confirm the vehicle and Form 8621 reporting obligation rather than treating cash-like exposure as automatically exempt.
A cash-parking position is usually the cheapest PFIC in a portfolio to actually report, because gains are small and the holding period is short. Leaving it off the return is a much more expensive mistake than including it.
IB01 pays you nothing. The money-market style interest are reinvested inside the fund instead of hitting your account. Under the default §1291 rules, there may be no cash distribution to test as an excess distribution while you simply hold, while a later disposition can still trigger the allocation and interest-charge regime. Separate annual Form 8621 reporting can also apply during the holding period.
The whole bill then arrives at once. When you sell, the entire gain is allocated rateably across every day you owned IB01; each prior year's slice is taxed at that year's highest ordinary rate, and an interest charge runs from each of those years through to the filing date. An accumulating share class is where §1291 does the most damage, because the longer you held quietly, the longer the interest has been running.
Two knock-ons worth planning around. A mark-to-market election under §1296 taxes the annual paper gain as ordinary income — but IB01 distributes no cash, so you have to fund that tax from somewhere else every year. And a QEF election under §1295 requires a PFIC Annual Information Statement from the fund; if iShares does not produce one for this share class, QEF is not actually available to you no matter how much better it looks on paper.
The QEF route for IB01 depends on BlackRock/iShares issuing a PFIC Annual Information Statement covering the year — the ordinary-income-and-capital-gain breakdown §1295 requires. Ask for it in writing before you file rather than after: a QEF election made without the statement to support it is not one you want to be defending later.
IB01 is the iShares $ Treasury Bond 0-1yr UCITS ETF (Accumulating), ISIN IE00BGSF1X88. Match the ticker — and the ISIN, where your statement shows one — to this line before reading the mechanics above as yours.
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Four questions — how many funds, for how long, whether Forms 8621 were ever filed, whether the returns are current — and a route into the preparation that fits, with what it costs. Nothing you answer leaves this page.
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A routing read, not a determination. Whether a fund is a PFIC, whether an exception applies and what a prior year needs are established when the holdings are screened; the route above says where that happens and what it costs.
This is a screening assessment based on published vehicle facts and the statutory tests—not a classification based on domicile alone, and not individualized tax, legal, or investment advice — see our methodology (IRC §1297 et seq.). Confirm your specific situation with a licensed professional.
Primary sources (Cornell Legal Information Institute for the US Code and CFR; IRS.gov for forms, procedures, and treaty documents). This page is general information, not individualized tax or legal advice.
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