Supreme Court Update for Taxes and the October 2022 Term

October 3, 2022 by 2 Comments

Thanks to Carl Smith, I write to point out the cases accepted for the Supreme Court term starting October 3, 2022, that might have some impact on tax procedure.  Three of the cases are related to the issues of jurisdiction and equitable tolling raised in Boechler during the last term and one relates to the calculation of the FBAR penalty.

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1)  Arellano v. McDonough – This case will be argued October 4.  The questions presented are:  (1) Whether the rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling from Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs applies to the one-year statutory deadline in 38 U.S.C. § 5110(b)(1) for seeking retroactive disability benefits, and, if so, whether the government has rebutted that presumption; and (2) whether, if 38 U.S.C. § 5110(b)(1) is amenable to equitable tolling, this case should be remanded so the agency can consider the particular facts and circumstances in the first instance.

2)  United States v. Bittner – This case will be argued on November 2.  Andy Weiner blogged this case for PT back in January.  This case presents the issue of the calculation of the penalty for failure to timely file the Foreign Bank & Financial Accounts information, commonly known as FBAR.  The IRS seeks to calculate the penalty based on each account not reported and taxpayers want to limit the penalty to the failure to file the form (which could contain multiple accounts).  The circuits are split.  The financial difference in the calculation of the penalty can be enormous with the per form approach limiting the penalty to $10,000 per year while the amount with the IRS approach is a multiple of the number of accounts times $10,000.  The Center for Taxpayer Rights has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the per form approach.  This brief was authored by Gwen Moore.  The American College of Tax Counsel has also filed an amicus brief arguing for the per form approach.  This brief was authored by the law firm of Kostelanetz & Fink.

3)  Wilkins v. United States – This is a private quiet title action, where the Circuits are split over whether the quiet title filing deadline in district court is jurisdictional. The issue of equitable tolling is not involved. I think this is an easy win for the petitioners.  The provisions granting district court’s jurisdiction are not the same as the filing deadline, and the filing deadline merely reads:

(g) Any civil action under this section, except for an action brought by a State, shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued. Such action shall be deemed to have accrued on the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the claim of the United States. 

The “shall be barred” language is similar to that in the FTCA deadlines, which were held not jurisdictional in Kwai Fun Wong (2015).  Oral argument has not yet been set.

4) MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC — The cert. petition reads:

In Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., this Court clarified that limitations on judicial relief should not be treated as jurisdictional absent a clear statement by Congress. At least six circuits have held that 11 U.S.C. 363(m) does not limit the appellate courts’ jurisdiction to review unstayed bankruptcy court sale orders, but rather limits only the remedies available in such an appeal. By its plain terms, Section 363(m) presupposes a “reversal or modification on appeal” of a sale order, and specifies only that such reversal or modification “does not affect the validity of [the] sale” to a good faith purchaser, leaving the courts free to fashion other remedies without that effect.

In the present case, the Second Circuit held, to the contrary, that Section 363(m) deprived the appellate courts of jurisdiction over an appeal from a lease assignment order deemed “integral” to an already completed sale order, notwithstanding that: the sale order was not contingent on the assignment; the sale price was fixed without regard to whether the lease could be assigned; and respondent had expressly waived (in successfully opposing a stay) any argument that Section 363(m) would bar appellate review. A month later, the Fifth Circuit re-confirmed that it also treats Section 363(m) as jurisdiction-stripping.

The question presented is:

Whether Bankruptcy Code Section 363(m) limits the appellate courts’ jurisdiction over any sale order or order deemed “integral” to a sale order, such that it is not subject to waiver, and even when a remedy could be fashioned that does not affect the validity of the sale.

Oral argument has not yet been set.

Filed Under: Equitable tolling, FBAR, Federal Courts - Jurisdiction, Supreme Court

APA and FBAR Skirmishes Continue in Schwarzbaum v US

April 13, 2022 by 1 Comment

A couple of months ago in 11th Circuit Remands Willful FBAR Penalty Case Back to IRS Due to APA Violation I blogged about Schwarzbaum v United States, where the Eleventh Circuit held that Schwarzbaum willfully violated his FBAR reporting obligations for three years but that the IRS miscalculated the FBAR penalties. As I discussed, the FBAR statute itself pegs the maximum penalty to each account’s balance as of the date that the taxpayer failed to file the FBAR, a date that IRS neglected in calculating his penalty.

The court considered the IRS’s actions as not in accordance with the law and arbitrary and capricious under the APA. It ordered that the case be remanded to the IRS for the purpose of recalculating the penalties.

Following the decision, the government filed a motion with the 11th Circuit asking that the district court retain jurisdiction pending the outcome of the remand. Schwarzbaum  opposed the motion.  What is at stake with this skirmish?

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It appears the parties are gearing up over a possible SOL issue. The 11th Circuit’s opinion suggested that a remand for purposes of recalculating the willfulness penalty would not trigger a new assessment. That was important, because a new assessment would be barred under the under the six-year statute of limitations on FBAR assessments. See 31 U.S.C. § 5321(b)(1).

In its reply brief filed last week, the government suggests that by opposing the government’s motion, Schwarzbaum is teeing up for a different SOL challenge:

Perhaps recognizing the statute of limitations does not prevent the IRS from recalculating the penalties, Schwarzbaum intends to employ a different, albeit equally spurious, strategy. If this Court were to decline to retain jurisdiction, Schwarzbaum will likely assert that the Government is time-barred from bringing a new suit to collect the recalculated penalties. See 31 U.S.C. § 5321(b)(2)(A) (collection action must be brought within two years after assessment). That argument directly contradicts the Eleventh Circuit decision, which recognized that Schwarzbaum was not entitled to a judgment in his favor and that the IRS had a right to recalculate the FBAR penalties.

In arguing that the court should retain jurisdiction, the government acknowledges that in typical APA cases courts do not retain jurisdiction when there has been a remand. The government’s reply brief distinguishes more typical APA challenges to agency action from the APA’s role in evaluating IRS FBAR penalty calculations:

As the United States noted in its moving papers, APA cases often involve a party challenging government agency action and typically the plaintiff is requesting that a court set that action aside. The challenger prevails when the court sets aside the agency action and remands the case to the agency. In such cases, courts generally do not retain jurisdiction during remand because once the action is set aside there is nothing left to review. Any post-remand proceeding would essentially start from scratch and focus on the action the agency took on remand.

Continuing to contrast the typical APA cases, the government argues that what is at stake in FBAR cases is very different:

Here, the remand is limited to the narrow issue of recalculation of the FBAR penalties consistent with the Eleventh Circuit decision. The IRS has not been instructed to develop a new administrative record or conduct a new willfulness analysis. Unlike in the typical APA case brought by a challenger to agency action, the United States brought a common-law action to reduce a liability to judgment. There is an outstanding question, not about whether Schwarzbaum must pay, but rather about how much Schwarzbaum must pay. Unlike an APA case in which the parties’ claims are resolved when the court either upholds or sets aside the agency action with a remand, this case is not resolved until the Court enters a monetary judgment. 

As the government suggests, the APA’s role differs considerably in this case as compared to typical actions to set aside agency conduct. This case, and others like it, will assist in clarifying the somewhat different ways that the APA is likely to apply to evaluate IRS conduct in the types of its actions that are subject to APA scrutiny.

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), FBAR

11th Circuit Remands Willful FBAR Penalty Case Back to IRS Due to APA Violation

February 16, 2022 by 3 Comments

Taxpayers who fail to disclose overseas accounts with more than $10,000 face hefty penalties under the Bank Secrecy Act. For willful violations the IRS can impose a penalty of up to the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the balance in each undisclosed account at the time of the violation (for a discussion of whether the non-willful penalty is computed per account or per form, see The Fifth Circuit Parts Ways with the Ninth Circuit Regarding the Non-Willful FBAR Penalty).

For people with multiple accounts and multiple years of willful violations, the maximum willful penalty can be crippling. The draconian impact has led to 8th Amendment excessive fine challenges, as well as arguments that its punitive nature should lead to the penalty not surviving the death of the violator.

All this leads to United States v Schwarzbaum, a case that has generated a great deal of attention. The case involves a wealthy German-born naturalized U.S. citizen who starting in the early 2000’s had multiple bank accounts in Costa Rica and Switzerland. Schwarzbaum self-filed an FBAR in 2007 and listed only one account. He did not file any FBAR in 2008, and in 2009 he filed an FBAR that only listed three accounts. IRS assessed over $12 million in penalties, and brought suit to collect.

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There is a lot to the case, including a discussion of the appropriate willfulness standard and the possible impact of the opinion on the statute of limitations when an original penalty assessment is timely but a court finds that the IRS computed the penalty improperly and needs to start over. My colleague Jack Townsend, who, in addition to writing a terrific blog on criminal tax matters, is the principal author of the criminal penalties chapter and FBAR subchapter in Saltzman and Book IRS Practice and Procedure, covers the case in 11th Cir. Remands For IRS To Re-Determine FBAR Penalties After Affirming Original Calculation Was Arbitrary And Capricious.

For purposes of this post, I just want to highlight one aspect of the opinion: the relationship of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to the appropriate amount of willful penalty.

On appeal, Schwarzbaum argued that the IRS’s actions in calculating the penalties were “not in accordance with the law” under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). This inquiry into what and why the IRS did in computing the penalty differs from what courts do in reviewing Title 26 penalties; for the most part, in IRC-based tax penalty cases the APA does not provide the means to examine the IRS’s conduct. In typical tax penalty cases, courts can take a fresh look at both the propriety of imposing the penalty and the amount of the penalty, assuming that they conclude that the penalty is warranted in the first instance.

Title 31 FBAR penalties differ. The APA shines a light on agency conduct, and reviewing courts are generally empowered to examine whether the agency acted rationally and provided a reasoned contemporaneous explanation based on the record at the time of the original agency action. (for an early discussion of the intersection of APA and FBAR see District Court Punishes IRS For Failing to Justify or Explain Itself in FBAR Case )

All of this gets back to the IRS actions in assessing over $12 million in willful FBAR penalties on Schwarzbaum. As Jack notes, to soften the possible impact of the FBAR penalty the IRS in the Internal Revenue Manual “has a formula that determines the maximum willful penalty that it will assess at 50% of the highest amount in the accounts in all willful years. The IRM then allocates that penalty in equal portions over the willful years.”

The problem with that IRM is that the statute itself pegs the maximum penalty to each account’s balance as of the date that the taxpayer failed to file the FBAR, a date that IRM formula neglects and one that the IRS did not use in calculating Schwarzbaum’s penalty.

As Jack discussed, Schwarzbaum “held that, since the allocation formula was based on the high amounts during the reporting year rather than the amounts on the reporting dates, the allocation was arbitrary and capricious and could not be sustained.” (my emphasis).

In the words of the Eleventh Circuit, the IRS botched its calculations from the start:

In calculating Schwarzbaum’s FBAR penalties, the IRS took a wrong fork in the road by starting with the wrong numbers. Recall that, for each tax year and for each account, the statutory maximum penalty for a willful FBAR violation is the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account’s June 30 balance. See 31 U.S.C. § 5321(a)(5)(C)(i), (D)(ii); 31 C.F.R. § 1010.306(c). By using the wrong account balances, the IRS calculated the wrong statutory maximums for Schwarzbaum’s penalties, and from there, mitigated the penalties across the board. The IRS’s error, it appears, flowed through its calculations from beginning to end.

This led the Eleventh Circuit to conclude that the district court should have remanded the matter back to the IRS to determine the appropriate penalty amount:

When a party challenges agency action under the APA, “the district court does not perform its normal role but instead sits as an appellate tribunal.” Cnty. of L.A. v. Shalala, 192 F.3d 1005, 1011 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (quotation omitted). And when an agency action is unlawful, the APA directs a reviewing court to “hold [it] unlawful and set [it] aside.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2). The APA does not, however, direct the court to do the agency’s job for it.

The opinion goes on to cite the the Supreme Court in SEC v. Chenery Corp for the principle that a reviewing court is to examine the grounds that the agency used in making its determination, and it is not the court’s role to “affirm the administrative action by substituting what it considers to be a more adequate or proper basis.”

Conclusion

In vacating the district court’s judgment, the Eleventh Circuit instructed the district court to remand the matter back to the IRS to recalculate the penalties.

While I have problems with the draconian nature of the FBAR penalty (an issue that Congress should take up or perhaps one that can have an impact on courts considering the survivability of the FBAR penalty at death), the Eleventh Circuit’s approach seems formalistic.

As Title 31 gives IRS discretion to impose a penalty up to the maximum of 50% of the account balance as of the violation date, it seems that the IRS approach in the IRM, and any mitigated penalty it wishes to impose on Schwarzbaum or anyone else for that matter, should likely just start with a new first step in its calculations. That step should take into account half of the highest account balance and allocate it across all willful years, with any amount in a given year capped at 50% of that year’s aggregate account balances on the reporting date. Once that step is taken, documented internally, and communicated to taxpayers clearly, I suspect that it will be difficult to mount an APA challenge to the penalty.

Filed Under: FBAR

January 2022 Digest

February 1, 2022 by 2 Comments

A lot has happened in the tax world since the year began, then filing season began last week, and the ABA Tax Section 2022 Virtual Midyear Meeting began yesterday. There are no signs that things will slow down soon, except for (maybe) IRS notices.

Procedurally Taxing will continually provide comprehensive updates and information, but if you fall behind with your reading or struggle to keep up- I’ll be digesting each month’s posts from here on out.

January’s posts highlighted the NTA’s Report, the ongoing impact of the pandemic, and recent Circuit splits.

National Taxpayer Advocate’s Report

NTA Report Released: Essential Reading: The Report is available and contains new features, including an enhanced summary of the Ten Most Serious Problems and a change in the methodology used to determine the Most Litigated Issues.

What are the Most Litigated Issues and What’s Happening in Collection?: A closer look at the Most Litigated Issues. EITC issues are often petitioned but rarely result in an opinion, suggesting that most are settled before trial. In Collection, lien cases referred to the DOJ have declined substantially over the years corresponding with the decline in Revenue Officers and resources.

Who Settles Cases – Appeals or Counsel (and Why?): An analysis of data on the number of Tax Court cases settled by Appeals or Counsel. An increasing percentage of settlements are handled by Counsel, but why? Possible reasons and possible solutions are considered.

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Where Have Tax Court Deficiency Cases Come from in the Past Decade?: Most deficiency cases have come from correspondence exams of low- and middle-income pro se taxpayers. The focus of IRS examinations over the past decade has influenced the cases that end up in Tax Court. A shift in focus may be coming as IRS seeks to hire attorneys to specifically combat syndicated conservation easements, abusive micro-captive insurance arrangements and other tax schemes.

The Melt – Cases That Drop Away in Tax Court: Around 20% of Tax Court cases get dismissed each year- likely due, in part, to untimely filed petitions. Also due to a failure to prosecute, that is the petitioner abandoned the process somewhere along the way. Ways to address this issue are worth exploring, such as increasing access to representation and implementing a model utilized by the Veterans Court of Appeals.

Supreme Court Updates and Information

Who Qualifies as Press and the Boechler Supreme Court Argument Today: Being consider a member of the press comes with benefits, including the option to attend Supreme Court arguments with a press day pass when Covid-restrictions end. In lieu of being there in person, real-time broadcast links of Oral Arguments are made available on the Supreme Court website.

Transcript of Boechler Oral Argument: A link to the transcript of the Boechler Oral Argument is provided and Keith shares his in-person experiences observing the Supreme Court and the options available to others who are interested in doing so when Covid-restrictions end.

Pandemic-Related Considerations

Refund Claims and Section 7508A: A well-informed analysis of the disaster area suspensions under section 7508A and the refund lookback limits. Does the language in section 7508A allow for an extended lookback period? The IRS Office of Chief Counsel doesn’t think so, but TAS has recommended that Congress amend section 6511(b)(2)(A) for that purpose, and there is an argument that a regulatory solution is already available.

 Making Additional Work for Yourself and Others: The IRS has been cashing taxpayer payments without acknowledging receipt of the associated return. This improper recordkeeping resulted in the IRS sending CP80 notices to taxpayers requesting duplicate returns. This created more work for the IRS, practitioners, and clients. The IRS, however, recently announced it would stop doing this, as summarized directly below.

IRS Announces Stoppage of Notice to Paper Filers Who Remitted Payment and Tax Court Announces Continued Zooming: The IRS will stop requesting duplicate returns from paper filers who remitted payments with their original returns. Members of Congress also made specific requests to the IRS with the goal of providing relief to taxpayers until the IRS backlog is resolved, including temporarily halting automated collections, among other things. The Tax Court announced all February trial sessions will be by Zoom.

Practice and Procedure Considerations

“But I’ve Always Done It That Way!” Practitioner Considerations on Subsequent Year Exams: A TIGTA recommended change to IRS procedure may increase the audit risk for taxpayers who do not respond to audit notices. There is no blanket prohibition on telling clients about audit rates and general likelihoods of audit, so practitioners should be able to advise their clients of this potentially emerging risk and ways to avoid it.

New Rules in Effect for Refund Claims For Section 41 Research Credits Raise A Number of Procedural Issues: New rules for research credit refund claims require extensive documentation which increases costs and the risk of a deficient claim determination. Procedures for determinations were issued at the beginning of the month and have generated concern among practitioners because a determination cannot be challenged with a traditional refund suit and because the IRS modified regulatory requirements without utilizing formal notice and comment procedures.

Tax Court News

Tax Court Going Remote for the Remainder of January[and February]: January calendars (and now February, as mentioned above) scheduled in-person sessions have switched to remote sessions due to ongoing Covid-concerns.

Tax Court Orders and Decisions

The Tacit Consent Doctrine May Extend Far Beyond Signing a Joint Return: The Court in Soni v. Commissioner, allowed the tacit consent doctrine (where facts and circumstances led to finding of consent on the part of a non-signing spouse) to apply to returns, power of attorney authorizations and forms 872. The doctrine could be expanded in future cases, so it should be kept in mind when representing innocent spouses.

Timely TFRP Appeal?: The administrative 60-day deadline to respond to TFRP notices is discussed in an order requesting that the IRS supplement its motion for summary judgment. The origin of a deadline is important. Jurisdictional deadlines are different from administrative deadlines, and cases involving administrative deadlines can be reviewed for abuse of discretion.

Circuit Court Decisions

Eleventh Circuit finds Regulation Invalid under APA: The Eleventh Circuit, in Hewitt, calls into question who has the burden to show that a comment made during a notice and comment period: 1) was significant, and 2) consideration of it was adequate. The Tax Courts says it’s the taxpayer, the Eleventh Circuit says it’s the IRS, but what does this mean for everyone else?

The Fifth Circuit Parts Ways with the Ninth Circuit Regarding the Non-Willful FBAR Penalty: A difference in statutory interpretation results in a recent split between the Ninth and Fifth Circuits over whether the non-willful penalty under section 5321(a)(5)(A) should be assessed on a per-form or per-account basis. The Ninth Circuit held that legislative history, purpose, and fairness support a per-form penalty, but the Fifth Circuit held that Congress’ intent and the objective of the penalty support a finding that it’s per-account.

Goldring is Back with a Circuit Split: The Fifth Circuit addresses how underpayment interest should be computed on a later assessed deficiency when a taxpayer elects to credit forward an overpayment from an earlier filed return. It held “a taxpayer is liable for interest only when the Government does not have the use of money it is lawfully due.” This contrasts with other Circuits which have decided that the law allows the IRS to begin computing interest when an amount is “due and unpaid.”

Polselli v US: Circuit Split on Notice Rules for Summonses to Aid Collection: A recent Sixth Circuit decision continues a circuit split on a fundamental issue in IRS summons practice: does the IRS have to give notice when it issues a summons on accounts owned by third parties in the aid of collecting an assessed tax? The Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Circuits read section 7609 notice requirements and its exclusion without limitations, which contrasts with the Ninth Circuit’s more narrow interpretation.

D.C. Circuit Narrows Tax Court Whistleblower Award Jurisdiction: The D.C. Circuit overturns Tax Court precedent by holding that the Tax Court lacks jurisdiction over appeals of threshold rejections of whistleblower requests. Since all appeals of whistleblower cases go to the D.C. Circuit, the Tax Court is bound by the decision unless the Supreme Court takes up the issue. 

Liens and Judgments

Local Taxes and the Federal Tax Lien: The effect of the Tax Lien Act of 1966 was reiterated in United States v. Tilley.  Section 6323(a) sets up the first in time rule of law, but 6323(b) provides ten exceptions, including one for local property taxes, which allows a local lien to defeat a federal tax lien even when the local lien comes later in time.

Tax Judgments and Quiet Titles: Tax judgments can benefit the IRS beyond the 10-year federal collection statute of limitations. Boykin v. United States, like Tilley, involves real property held by nominal owners. The taxpayer brought suit to quiet title, the IRS counterclaimed that the money used to purchase the property was fraudulently transferred, and the taxpayer argued that a state statute of limitations prevented the IRS’s argument. The Boykin Court disagreed with the taxpayer relying upon Supreme Court precedent that state statutes do not override controlling federal statutes.

Bankruptcy and Taxes

Diving Beneath the Surface of In re Webb: An in-depth analysis of a technical bankruptcy issue that can impact taxes involving an election under section 1305, which allows postpetition tax claims to be deemed prepetition claims. The classification of the claims impacts whether a subsequent IRS refund offset violates a debtor’s rights.

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Appeals, Bank Secrecy Act, Burden of Proof, Collection Due Process, Earned Income Credit, Equitable tolling, Exam, FBAR, Form 2848, Innocent Spouse, Interest, Judgment, Lien, Monthly Digest, Overpayment Interest, SCOTUS, Statutes of Limitation, Taxpayer advocate

The Fifth Circuit Parts Ways with the Ninth Circuit Regarding the Non-Willful FBAR Penalty

January 5, 2022 by 1 Comment

We welcome guest blogger Andy Weiner today to provide insight on a very important case decided last year.  Professor Weiner teaches at Temple Law School where he directs their LLM program in Tax and, starting this fall, also directs their low income taxpayer clinic.  Prior to arriving at Temple, Professor Weiner spent more than a decade as an attorney in the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, initially in the Appellate Section, where he briefed and argued approximately 50 cases throughout the United States Courts of Appeals, and then at the trial level in the Court of Federal Claims Section. He received numerous distinguished service awards during his tenure.  Keith

In United States v. Bittner, the Fifth Circuit reckons with the crack down on hiding wealth offshore. At issue is the non-willful penalty in 31 U.S.C. § 5321(a)(5)(A) for failing to report interest in foreign financial accounts on an annual Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts known as an FBAR. The statute provides the Secretary of the Treasury “may impose a civil monetary penalty on any person who violates, or causes any violation of, any provision of section 5314 . . . not [to] exceed $10,000.” As explained by the Fifth Circuit, the case “hinges on what constitutes a ‘violation’ of section 5314: the failure to file an FBAR (as urged by Bittner) or the failure to report an account (as urged by the government).” Slip Op. at 13. On the surface, it’s a straightforward question of statutory interpretation, and not a particularly close one at that. It becomes more complicated, however, when you consider questions of purpose and fairness, which may help to explain why the Fifth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit split on the issue.

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Bittner has spent most of his life in Romania. Between 1982 and 1990, he lived in the United States and became a citizen. He then returned to Romania and made a fortune as an investor. Through holding companies, Bittner controlled dozens of bank accounts in Romania, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He did not file timely FBARs for 2007 to 2011 disclosing these accounts. The IRS imposed the maximum non-willful penalty of $10,000 regarding each account for each year. Bittner’s total penalty liability came to $1.77 million.

Bittner argued his liability should be capped at $50,000 based on his failure to file an FBAR for each of five years. As mentioned, that depends on what qualifies as a violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5314 subject to a penalty. Section 5314 states that the Secretary “shall require a resident or citizen of the United States . . . to keep records, file reports, or keep records and file reports, when the . . . person makes a transaction or maintains a relation for any person with a foreign financial agency.” By the Fifth Circuit’s reading, a person violates the statute according when he or she fails to report “a relation . . . with a foreign financial agency.” Bittner pointed out that the statute is not self-effectuating and that the implementing regulations require filing one FBAR that reports all applicable accounts. But that does not affect the meaning of the statute, as the Fifth Circuit explained: “Streamlining the process in this way, . . . cannot redefine the underlying reporting requirement imposed by section 5314.” Slip Op. at 17.

The Fifth Circuit also looked to the surrounding penalty provisions. Section 5321(a)(5) includes both a non-willful and a willful penalty, and the latter unquestionably treats each failure to report an account as a violation. Specifically, 31 U.S.C. § 5321(a)(5)(C) provides that “any person willfully violating, or willfully causing any violation of, any provision of section 5314” is subject to a maximum penalty equal to the greater of $100,000 or 50% of “the balance in the account at the time of the violation.” The reasonable cause exception to the non-willful penalty at 31 U.S.C. § 5321(a)(5)(B)(ii) likewise treats each failure to report an account as a violation, excusing “such violation” if “due to reasonable cause” and “the balance in the account at the time of the transaction was properly reported.” The same word in the definition of the non-willful penalty presumably bears the same meaning as it does in these related provisions.

The Fifth Circuit presents a compelling case based on the text of the statute that each failure to report a foreign bank account is a violation subject to a non-willful FBAR penalty. But why should Bittner, who maintained many foreign accounts ostensibly for legitimate business reasons and who did not willfully fail to report them on an FBAR, owe $1.77 million? Given the unintentional nature of the conduct, there’s little, if any, deterrence value to be gained. What then is the point of such significant penalty liability? The history of the non-willful penalty raises the prospect that it has outlived some of its usefulness.

The original FBAR reporting requirement in the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 was enforced only by a willful penalty up to $100,000. In 2004, following a report by Treasury that perhaps hundreds of thousands of taxpayers were hiding wealth offshore and not filing FBARs, Congress increased the maximum willful penalty to 50% of the balance in an account not properly reported and added a non-willful penalty up to $10,000. Congress sought to make getting caught prohibitively expense and installed the non-willful penalty as a floor on the cost of non-compliance. Then, in 2010, Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which required foreign banks to report account information of U.S. taxpayers. Bank reporting has proven much more efficient and effective at enforcing FBAR compliance and weakened the justification for the maximum non-willful penalty.

Still, the maximum penalty has its place, for example, as a proxy for taxes that the account holder avoided. Finding the appropriate balance is a matter of IRS discretion and the penalty mitigation guidelines at IRM 4.26.16-2. A person must cooperate with the examination and have a clean record in terms of prior FBAR penalty assessments, criminal activities, and civil tax fraud in any year of a non-willful FBAR violation. If these criteria are met, examiners are instructed to “limit the total mitigated penalties for each year to the statutory maximum for a single non-willful violation,” unless “in the examiner’s discretion . . . , the facts and circumstances of a case warrant a different penalty amount.” IRM 4.26.16.5.4.1 (06-24-2021). Among the factors an examiner should consider is “the harm caused by the FBAR violation,” i.e., lost tax revenue. IRM 4.26.16.5.2.1 (06-24-2021).

There is no indication why the IRS sought the maximum penalty liability against Bittner. The Fifth Circuit seemed to assume that Bittner’s liability was justified by “Congress’s central goal in enacting the BSA . . . to crack down on the use of foreign financial accounts to evade tax.” Slip Op. at 22. The Ninth Circuit in United States v. Boyd, 991 F.3d 1077 (2021), on the other hand, observed that Boyd amended her return to include income from her foreign bank accounts and proceeded to conclude that her non-willful penalty liability from failing to report 13 accounts in one year could not exceed $10,000. Tax avoidance (or the lack thereof) weighs heavily on courts notwithstanding that the relevant information is not necessarily disclosed in FBAR cases.

The lesson here for foreign account holders is to cooperate with an examination and pay the tax owed on income from foreign bank accounts. If the IRS does not mitigate the non-willful penalty liability, the account holder is in position to seize the higher equitable ground in court. The lesson for the IRS is to follow the mitigation guidelines and consider any departures from those rules carefully. The Supreme Court may take up Bittner to resolve the conflict with the Ninth Circuit, in which case I would expect it to affirm that each failure to report a foreign bank account is a violation of section 5314. But that will not end the debate over the appropriate level of non-willful penalty liability. To the contrary, the more the IRS has discretion, the more likely those disputes will endure.

Filed Under: Civil Penalties, FBAR, Offshore Disclosure Tagged With:

2021 Year in Review – Cases

December 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Despite the ability to access most courts only remotely for much if not all of the year, 2021 still produced a number of important tax procedure decisions.  Perhaps judges could produce more opinions because they did not need to travel or to hold lengthy in-person trials.  This post shows that not all cases are Graev cases.

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Supreme Court matters

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in CIC Services.  The Court holds that the Anti-Injunction Act does not bar a suit challenging an IRS notice that requires a non-taxpayer to provide information even though the failure to provide the information could result in a penalty.  Posts can be found  here, here, here and here.

The Supreme Court rejected the request for certiorari in Organic Cannabis v. Commissioner seeking a determination that the time period for filing a petition in Tax Court in a deficiency case is a claims processing period rather than a jurisdictional one but granted certiorari in Boechler v. Commissioner regarding the same issue but in the collection due process context.  The Boechler case will be argued before the Supreme Court on January 12, 2022.

Circuit Court matters

Coffey v. Commissioner, –F.3d – (8th Cir. 2021)  – in a case that fractured the Tax Court about as badly as it can be fractured, the Eighth Circuit, after initially projecting harmony and uniformity in its decision, fractured as well, reversing its initial decision which overturned the Tax Court’s fully reviewed opinion.  This action briefly reopened the door on the question of adequate filing of a return for purposes of triggering the statute of limitations, before reinstating the original holding through a new opinion by the panel. That new panel opinion can be found here. 

Taxpayers claimed that they were residents of the US Virgin Islands in 2003 and 2004 and filed returns with the Virgin Islands tax authority.  That taxing authority has a symbiotic relationship with the IRS and sent to the IRS some of the documents it received.  The IRS took the documents it received and concluded that M/M Coffey should have filed a US tax return.  Based on that conclusion, it sent the Coffeys a notice of deficiency.  The Coffeys argued that the notice of deficiency was sent beyond the statute of limitations on assessment since their filing with the US Virgin Islands tax authority also served as a filing with the IRS, starting the normal assessment statute.  The government argued that because the Coffeys did not file a return with the US, no statute of limitations on assessment existed.  After only eight years, the Tax Court sided with the Coffeys.  A mere three years later, the Eighth Circuit reversed in a unanimous three judge panel. 

On February 10, 2021, the Eighth Circuit granted a panel rehearing but denied a rehearing en banc.  Disagreements with the outcome of a circuit court usually result in a request for a rehearing en banc rather than a rehearing with the very panel that entered the decision.  So, this is a bit of an unusual twist in a case with many twists. After the vacating of the original opinion, the same panel issued a new opinion with some minor differences.

The result of the Eighth Circuit’s decision allows the IRS to come in many years later to challenge residence of individuals claiming Virgin Islands residence.  If the Coffeys had succeeded in this case, the procedural issue would have turned into a substantive victory, since the IRS would not have been able to make an assessment against them for the years at issue.

Gregory v. Commissioner, — F.3d – (3rd Cir. 2020) – This case was decided at the very end of 2020 so it is included here as it came out during last year’s end of year review and also because it is a case argued on appeal by the Tax Clinic at Harvard so including it provides another opportunity to showcase the work of the students.  The issue before the Third Circuit was whether the taxpayers’ use of Forms 2848 Power of Attorney and 4868 Request for Extension of Time constituted “clear and concise notice” of a change of address to the IRS pursuant to Treasury Regulation §301.6212-2.  Although filed as a non-precedential opinion, the outcome is a clear example of how the IRS cannot simply ignore the actual knowledge it has of a taxpayer’s address when issuing a Statutory Notice of Deficiency pursuant to I.R.C. §6212(b)(1), even if that taxpayer failed to follow the IRS’ prescribed procedures for changing their address. 

An odd ending to this case occurred when the Third Circuit returned it to the Tax Court.  Rather than simply entering an opinion for the taxpayers, the Court issued an order restoring the case to the general docket.  That order made no sense because the Gregorys unquestionably filed their Tax Court petition late.  This required the filing of a motion to have the court make a determination that the notice of deficiency was invalid, which it eventually did with no opposition from an equally confused government counsel.

In Patrick’s Payroll Services, Inc., v. Commissioner, No. 20-1772 (6th Cir. 2021), the Sixth Circuit upheld the decision of the Tax Court denying the taxpayer the opportunity to litigate the merits of the underlying tax because of a prior opportunity to discuss settlement with Appeals.  Guest blogger Chaim Gordon wrote about this case after the Tax Court’s decision and while the case was pending before the Sixth Circuit.  Chaim pointed out some of the novel arguments the taxpayer was making.  Unfortunately for the taxpayer, the Sixth Circuit was not buying what they were selling.

The 11th Circuit upheld the decision of the Tax Court in Sleeth v. Commissioner, — F.3d — 2021 WL 1049815 (11th Cir. 2021), holding that Ms. Sleeth was not an innocent spouse.  The Sleeth case continues the run of unsuccessful taxpayer appeals of innocent spouse cases following the major structural changes to the law in 1998. The Tax Court found three positive factors and only one negative factor applying the tests of Rev. Proc. 2013-34.  Yet, despite the multitude of factors favoring relief in each case, the Tax Court found that the negative knowledge factor required denial of relief.  This case follows the decision in the Jacobsen case from 2020 in which the Tax Court denied relief to someone with four positive factors for relief and only knowledge as a negative factor.  The pattern developing in these cases suggests that the Tax Court views the knowledge factor as a super factor, despite changes in IRS guidance no longer describing it as such.  Only economic hardship seems capable of overcoming a negative determination on knowledge.  In this post, Carl Smith discussed the Seventh Circuit’s decision in the Jacobsen case.  Both cases were argued on appeal by the Tax Clinic at Harvard.  The clinic also filed an amicus brief in the case of Jones v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2019-139, set to be argued soon before the 9th Circuit.

Lindsay v. U.S. is the latest case to apply the principle that United States v. Boyle essentially stands for the position that taxpayers have a nondelegable duty to be aware of tax deadlines. An agent’s incompetence or willful misconduct will not excuse the taxpayer from delinquency penalties.  Lindsay was incarcerated and executed a POA to Bertelson, an attorney, to manage his affairs, including filing his tax returns.  The attorney assured Lindsay he was doing so for the years 2012-15; instead he failed to file the returns and for good measure embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars. The actions resulted in Lindsay receiving $705,414.61 in actual damages and $1 million in punitive damages.  Lindsay eventually filed his tax returns and paid over $425,000 in delinquency penalties. He filed a claim for refund; IRS rejected and he filed a suit in district court. The district court, contrary to the magistrate’s recommendation, granted the government’s motion to dismiss, citing Boyle as precluding a claim for relief. Following a timely appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed. In so doing, it applied Boyle to Lindsay’s somewhat sympathetic circumstances.

Tax Court

In Ramey v Commissioner, 156 T.C. No. 1 (2021), the Tax Court determined in a precedential opinion that when the IRS issues a notice of decision rather than a notice of determination and the taxpayer has filed the collection due process (CDP) request late, the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.  The taxpayer, a lawyer, represented himself and pegged his arguments to last known address rather than jurisdiction.  Nonetheless, the decision expands the Court’s narrow view of jurisdiction to another setting without addressing the Supreme Court precedent on jurisdiction and its impact on the timing of the filing of documents.

Galloway v Commissioner, TC Memo 2021-24: This case holds that a taxpayer cannot use the CDP process to rehash a previously rejected offer in compromise (OIC).  Mr. Galloway actually submitted two OICs that the IRS rejected.  As an aside, from the description of the OICs in the Court’s opinion, the rejections seemed appropriate strictly from an asset perspective, since he did not want to include the value of a car he owned but allowed his daughter to use. 

The case of Mason v. Commissioner, T.C.M. 2021-64 shows at least one benefit of submitting an offer in compromise (OIC) through a request for a collection due process (CDP) hearing.  As part of his lessons from the Tax Court series, Bryan Camp has written an excellent post both on the case and the history of offers. 

Friendship Creative Printers v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2021-19: This case holds that the taxpayer could raise the merits of delinquency penalties by the backhanded method of challenging the application of payments.  Taxpayer failed to pay employment taxes over an extended period of time and failed to file the necessary returns but at some point made payments on the earliest periods.  In the CDP hearing, taxpayer argued satisfaction of the earliest periods and eventually provided an analysis showing payments equal to the tax paid.

The Court treated this as a challenge to the merits of the delinquency penalties imposed.  Unfortunately, the taxpayer did not designate its payments, which meant that the payments it made were not applied in the manner it expected and argued in the CDP hearing.  Taxpayer also looked at the transcripts without appreciating the impact of accruals not reflected in the assessed portion of the transcript but accruing nonetheless.

Reynolds v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2021-10: This case holds that the IRS can collect on restitution based assessments even when the taxpayer has an agreement with the Department of Justice to make payments on the restitution award.  Taxpayer’s prosecution resulted in a significant restitution order. He agreed to pay DOJ $100 a month or 10% of his income.  At the time of the CDP case he was not working and did not appear to have many prospects for future employment. Citing Carpenter v. Commissioner, 152 T.C. 202 (2019), the Tax Court said that the IRS did have the right to pursue collection from him.  Obviously that right, at least with respect to levy, is tempered by the requirement in IRC 6343 not to levy when it would place someone in financial hardship, but no blanket prohibition existed to stop the IRS from collecting and therefore to stop it from making a CDP determination in support of lien or levy. The case is a good one to read for anyone dealing with a restitution based assessment to show the interplay between DOJ and IRS in the collection of this type of assessment, as well as to show the limitations of restitution based assessments compared to “regular” assessments.

BM Construction v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2021-13: This case involves, inter alia, a business owned by a single individual and the mailing of the CDP notice to the business owner rather than the business.  The Tax Court finds that sending the CDP notice to the individual rather than the business does not create a problem here, since the sole owner of the business would receive the notice were it addressed to the business rather than to him personally.

Shitrit v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2021-63, points out the limitations on raising issues other than the revocation of the passport when coming into the Tax Court under the jurisdiction of the passport provision.  Petitioner here tries to persuade the Tax Court to order the issuance of a refund but gets rebuffed due to the Court’s view of the scope of its jurisdiction in this type of case.

The case of Garcia v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 1 (2021) provides clarity and guidance on the Tax Court’s jurisdiction in passport cases as the Court issues a precedential opinion to make clear some of the things that can and cannot happen in a contest regarding the certification of passport revocation.  I did not find the decision surprising.  The Court’s passport jurisdiction is quite limited.  Petitioners will generally be disappointed in the scope of relief available through this new type of Tax Court jurisdiction. 

Other Courts

In Mendu v. United States, No. 1:17-cv-00738 (Ct. Fd. Claims April 7, 2021) the Court of Federal Claims held that FBAR penalties are not taxes for purposes of applying the Flora rule.  In arguing for the imposition of the Flora rule, the taxpayer, in a twist of sides, sought to have the court require that the individual against whom the penalties were imposed fully pay the penalties before being allowed to challenge the penalties in court.  The FBAR penalties are not imposed under title 26 of the United States Code, which most of us shorthand into the Internal Revenue Code, but rather are imposed under Title 31 as part of the Bank Secrecy Act.

The case of In re Bowman, No. 20-11512 (E.D. La. 2021) denies debtor’s motion for summary judgment that Ms. Bowman deserves innocent spouse relief.  On its own, the court reviews the issue of its jurisdiction to hear an innocent spouse issue as part of her chapter 13 bankruptcy case and decides that it has jurisdiction to make such a decision.  The parties did not raise the jurisdiction issue, which is not surprising from the perspective of the plaintiff, but may signal a shift in the government’s position since it had previously opposed the jurisdiction of courts other than the Tax Court to hear innocent spouse cases.

Filed Under: Bank Secrecy Act, Bankruptcy, Collection Due Process, Designation of Payment, Employment Taxes, FBAR, Federal Courts - Jurisdiction, Form 2848, Innocent Spouse, Last Known Address, Offer in Compromise, Passport revocation, Penalty Application, Restitution, Statutes of Limitation, Tax Court

Are FBAR Penalties Taxes for Purposes of the Flora Rule?

April 19, 2021 by Leave a Comment

In Mendu v. United States, No. 1:17-cv-00738 (Ct. Fd. Claims April 7, 2021) the Court of Federal Claims held that FBAR penalties are not taxes for purposes of applying the Flora rule.  In arguing for the imposition of the Flora rule the taxpayer, in a twist of sides, sought to have the court require that the individual against whom the penalties were imposed to fully pay the penalties before being allowed to challenge the penalties in court.  The FBAR penalties are not imposed under title 26 of the United States Code which most of us shorthand into the Internal Revenue Code but rather are imposed under Title 31 as part of the Bank Secrecy Act.

The possibility that the Flora rule could apply to non-tax issues first arose sua sponte in a Third Circuit case in 2018 which I wrote about here (see also my article on Flora from last year).  That post also contains a link to an excellent post by Jack Towsend.

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I think the attorneys for Mendu may have read the prior blog post but if not they definitely read the Bedrosian opinion discussed in the blog post.  In Mendu, in a flip of the normal situation, the taxpayer argues that Flora applies and their case should be dismissed while DOJ argues on behalf of the IRS that Flora does not apply since this case does not involve a liability under the IRC.

The court picks up on why the plaintiff in this case would want the case dismissed and would make the Flora argument raised sua sponte in the Bedrosian case:

On November 8, 2019, the Federal Circuit issued its decision in Norman v. United States, 942 F.3d 1111 (Fed. Cir. 2019); as a result, the stay expired. In Norman, the Federal Circuit held that a now out-of-date Treasury Regulation did not cap FBAR penalties for willful violations at $100,000. The Federal Circuit’s ruling in Norman, which binds this Court, may have given Mr. Mendu pause about continuing litigation in this circuit because on January 20, 2020 — facing a counterclaim against him for potentially 700 times greater than the amount sought in his complaint — Mr. Mendu sought to dismiss his own complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, along with Defendant’s counterclaim. See generally Pl. Rule 7(b)(1) Mot. In his Rule 7(b)(1) Motion, filed in 2020, Plaintiff based his sudden change in course on a footnote in in a case decided two years earlier, Bedrosian v. United States, 912 F.3d 144, 149 n.1 (3d Cir. 2018). In that footnote, which appears to be dictum, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Third Circuit) commented, without substantive analysis, that it was “inclined to believe” that FBAR penalties are internal-revenue laws within the scope of 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(1), and are therefore subject to the full payment rule as articulated in Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145, 164 (1960). Pl. Rule 7(b)(1) Mot. at 4-5, 7-11. Accordingly, Plaintiff now believes that the Flora full payment rule requires this Court to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim for illegal exaction of his $1,000 partial payment because Plaintiff has not fully paid the FBAR penalty at issue. Pl. Rule 7(b)(1) Mot. at 3-4. Mr. Mendu notes that, because this Court does not have independent jurisdiction over the Defendant’s counterclaim for $752,920, this Court must dismiss the Defendant’s counterclaim as well. Pl. Rule 7(b)(1) Mot. at 2, 11-14; Pl. Resp. to Cross-Mot. at 12-15.

Because of the potential huge exposure in the Court of Federal Claims and the much smaller exposure that might exist in the Central District of California, one can hardly blame petitioner for trying to remove their case from this jurisdiction where the law has turned unfavorable and try to get to another location where the law might be much better.  Unfortunately for petitioner but fortunately for almost everyone else, petitioner’s Flora argument does not gain any traction.

The court sets the scene for its discussion of the application of Flora by stating:

The parties agree that the Flora full payment rule only applies if it is an “internal-revenue tax” as that term is used in section 1346(a)(1). See Pl. Rule 7(b)(1) Mot. at 7; Def. Resp. at 4. As noted, if FBAR penalties are considered internal-revenue taxes, then the Flora full payment rule applies, and this Court lacks jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s tax refund claim because the Plaintiff has not paid the assessed $752,920 FBAR penalties in full. Conversely, if FBAR penalties are not internal-revenue taxes then Flora full payment rule does not apply, and this Court has jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s $1,000 illegal exaction claim. See Ibrahim v. United States, 112 Fed. Cl. 333, 336 (2013) (finding that while tax refund claims are subject to the Flora full payment rule, the full payment rule does not apply to other illegal exaction claims).

The court then finds that the FBAR penalty is not a tax.  The fact that title 31 and not title 26 imposes the FBAR penalty is something the court describes as more than a mere technicality.  The court finds not only that the FBAR penalty derives from a separate statutory scheme, but that the reasoning behind the Flora decision does not apply in this context, since full payment of the penalty does not matter for this penalty the same way it matters for taxes and other penalties.  The court finds the footnote in the Third Circuit’s opinion suggesting, but not holding, that perhaps Flora should apply to the FBAR penalty does not provide a persuasive basis for bringing Flora into an entirely different statutory scheme.  After analyzing several different reasons why the footnote falls short of persuading, it concludes this section of the opinion by stating:

It may be accurate that every internal-revenue law is not necessarily contained in Title 26. However, Congress’s specific placement of the FBAR in Title 31, the stated purpose of the BSA, and the fact that Congress chose not to employ traditional tax collection procedures to recover FBAR penalties collectively demonstrate that Congress did not intend to subject FBAR penalty suits to the Flora full payment rule.

The case then turns on the rules of the Court of Federal Claims.  The court rules do not track the Tax Court rules that do not allow a petitioner out of a deficiency case once properly filed (see discussion here); however, the rules do provide that once the defendant files an answer asserting a counterclaim the petitioner cannot seek dismissal of the counterclaim would not stand on its own in the court.  Here, the huge counterclaim made by the government would not survive if the complaint were withdrawn.  So, Mr. Mendu remains stuck in the Court of Federal Claims instead of being allowed to beat a retreat to the possible friendlier confines of the Central District of California.  Perhaps, he will continue to make the Flora argument.  I hope the court will continue to knock it down.

I do note that occasional guest blogger, Lavar Taylor, just won a big FBAR case in the 9th Circuit.  So, maybe Mr. Mendu has a good reason for wanting a change of scenery to Southern California. In Boyd v. United States,___ (9th Cir. 2021) the court held that 

Examining the statutory and regulatory scheme for reporting a relationship with a foreign financial agency under § 5314, the panel held that § 5321(a)(5)(A) authorizes the IRS to impose only one non-willful penalty when an untimely, but accurate, FBAR is filed, no matter the number of accounts.  

Perhaps we will give a further discussion of Lavar’s case in a future post.

Filed Under: FBAR, Flora

In FBAR Case Court Allows in to Evidence Newspaper Articles Despite Hearsay, Relevance, and Unfair Prejudice Objections

December 9, 2020 by Leave a Comment

US v Briguet is a brief order out of the Eastern District of New York. Briguet is an FBAR case. The maximum penalty for a willful FBAR violation is the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the balance in the account at the time of the violation. Proving that a violation is willful is the key aspect of most of these cases. The order relates to a motion in limine that Briguet filed. That motion asked the court to preclude the admission at trial of 96 newspaper articles that concerned the government’s crackdown on US taxpayers who held offshore accounts and did not report their existence on US tax returns or the FinCEN Form 114. The defendant argued that the articles should be excluded on hearsay, relevancy and unfair prejudice grounds. The order rejects the motion and (mostly) allows the articles into evidence. 

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As to hearsay, the order held that the articles were not offered to prove the truth of the matter being asserted (i.e., that Mr Briguet willfully failed to file the FBAR form). Instead, the court held that the government was offering the articles as circumstantial evidence of the state of Briguet’s mind and general awareness of the FBAR filing requirement.

As to relevance, the court noted the fairly wide definition of relevance for admissibility purposes, i.e., an item is  “relevant when ‘it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.’”  United States v. White, 692 F.3d 235, 246 (2d Cir. 2012), as amended (Sept. 28, 2012) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 401. With that benchmark, the court held that the articles, which were in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal prior to the date of the filing deadline, easily met the standard. Drilling deeper, the court noted that a number of the headlines flagged efforts targeted at UBS clients (where Briguet had his account) and that Briguet had testified that he read the financial sections of the NY Times and the Journal “every day.” In addition the order flagged the customer logs from UBS itself, “one of which illustrates that he “closely followed the published events on the UBS business policy for US customers” and “consulted a lawyer, aware of [UBS’s] change of policy, and fearing for the confidentiality of his account.”

In concluding that the pre-filing articles were relevant the order concluded that “a reasonable jury might readily conclude Defendant read the newspaper articles in the financial sections of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and such an inference seriously undermines any claim that he was unaware of the FBAR filing requirement.”

It was not a complete government victory, however. The motion also opposed admission of articles that appeared after the FBAR filing date. While the court declined to exclude the articles it reserved judgment and stated it would resolve that issue later. While the articles are not relevant to the state of mind at the time of the FBAR deadline the court noted that they may prove relevant as to when Briguet became aware of the deadline.

As a final objection to admissibility Briguet’s motion claimed that the articles would unfairly prejudice him because  “the jury may be left with the impression that the UBS case, DOJ’s Swiss bank crackdown, and the IRS’s offshore voluntary disclosure program were ‘hot issues’ to investors who read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and … infer … that Mr. Briguet probably read some of the articles at issue.” While noting that the observation was “valid” the court sided with the government noting that “[e]vidence is prejudicial, but in this instance any prejudicial effect is entirely coextensive with the probative value of the articles and therefore not unduly prejudicial.” 

Filed Under: FBAR
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