Supreme Court’s FBAR Ruling Skips Crucial Legal Question for Now

Tax attorneys James Dawson, Chad Vanderhoef and Alexander Olama published an article for Bloomberg Law discussing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bittner v. United States. The decision states that the Bank Secrecy Act's maximum $10,000 penalty for non-willfully filing a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBAR, will apply on a per-report basis as opposed to a per-account basis. Our authors argue that this ruling failed to establish the appropriate standard as to mens rea. They analyze how this decision can lead to more willful penalty cases, how it blurs the lines between willful and nonwillful cases and how another U.S. Supreme Court case might be able to provide these answers. 

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