FBAR Penalties: Relief for Taxpayers?

January 17, 2019

By statute, taxpayers who fail to disclose accounts on a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Account, commonly referred to as an FBAR, are subject to a maximum penalty of up to 50% of the funds in the undisclosed accounts. However, two recent district court opinions have held that the applicable regulations cap the FBAR penalty at $100,000 per undisclosed account. In this article, we analyze four recent cases that have split on the maximum permissible FBAR penalty and the implications of this debate.

Attorneys

Jeremy H. Temkin