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Bittner v. United States is a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on November 2, 2022, during the court’s October 2022-2023 term.
The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. To review the lower court’s opinion, click here.
The following timeline details key events in this case:
Alexandru Bittner, a businessman with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Romania, failed to report his interests in foreign bank accounts on annual Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) forms, which is required by the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA), while he was in Romania. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) fined Bittner $2.72 million in civil penalties—$10,000 for each unreported account each year from 2007 to 2011. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas denied Bittner’s reasonable-cause defense and found him liable, but reduced the fines to $50,000, holding that the $10,000 maximum penalty is related to each failure to file an annual FBAR, not to each failure to report an account. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit affirmed the district court’s deniel of Bittner’s defense and reversed the assessment of fines. The 5th Circuit reinstated the $2.72 million penalty, holding that each failure to report a qualifying foreign account constituted a separate reporting violation under the Bank Secrecy Act, and that the penalty applied on a per-account basis.[2]
Bittner appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on February 28, 2022, and on June 21, 2022, the court accepted the case to its merits docket during the October 2022-2023 term.
The petitioner presented the following questions to the court:[1]
Audio of oral argument:[4]
Transcript of oral argument:[5]
The case is pending adjudication before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court began hearing cases for the term on October 3, 2022. The court’s yearly term begins on the first Monday in October and lasts until the first Monday in October the following year. The court generally releases the majority of its decisions in mid-June.[6]
Supreme Court cases, October term 2022-2023
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