Government Win on Foreign Account Penalties Sets Up SCOTUS Case

The federal government’s broad winning streak over foreign bank account reporting requirements continued this week, but an appeals court split has emerged that could soon attract the Supreme Court’s attention.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday in favor of the government, finding that penalties for non-willful failures to report foreign bank accounts apply to each unreported account—not to each year in which accounts aren’t reported. That differs from a March ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and also from how the Fourth Circuit suggested in 2020 that ...