FBAR Penalties Go to the Supreme Court: Dueling Statutory Interpretations

July 21, 2022  |  New York Law Journal

For more than a decade, the government has pursued taxpayers who failed to report offshore accounts on FBARs. Lawyers representing clients caught in the government’s crosshairs have raised several significant legal issues that have failed to generate interest from the United States Supreme Court. In my latest article for the New York Law Journal, “FBAR Penalties Go to the Supreme Court: Dueling Statutory Interpretations,” I discuss the Supreme Court’s recent grant of certiorari in Bittner v. United States, which will resolve a circuit split concerning the maximum penalty for non-willful FBAR violations. Involving core issues of statutory construction and the regulatory scheme, Bittner’s outcome will undoubtedly have immediate implications for the tax bar and may well have even more far-reaching ramifications for Supreme Court jurisprudence.

FBAR Penalties Go to the Supreme Court: Dueling Statutory Interpretations (pdf | 204.53 KB)