Opinion of the Court
way and to the extent the Secretary prescribes,” or one does not. Multiple willful errors about specific accounts in a single report may confirm a violation of §5314, but even a single nonwillful mistake is enough to pose a problem. One way or another, §5314 is violated. The only distinction the law draws between these cases concerns the appropriate penalty.
That’s where §5321 comes in. As a baseline, §5321(a)(5) authorizes the Secretary to impose a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for “any violation” of §5314. 31 U. S. C. §§5321(a)(5)(A) and (B)(i). Some call this the “nonwillful” penalty provision. And here again, one thing is immediately apparent: The law still does not speak of accounts or their number. Instead, the statute pegs the quantity of nonwillful penalties to the quantity of “violation[s].” And as we have seen, §5314 provides that a violation occurs when an individual fails to file a report consistent with the statute’s commands. So multiple deficient reports may yield multiple $10,000 penalties, and even a seemingly simple deficiency in a single report may expose an individual to a $10,000 penalty. But in all cases, penalties for nonwillful violations accrue on a per-report, not a per-account, basis.[1]
To be sure, the statute’s penalty provisions do not stop there. Section 5321 goes on to say that if an individual “willfully” violates §5314, he may face a maximum penalty of $100,000. §5321(a)(5)(C)(i)(I). The statute then adds an even more specific rule for a subclass of willful violations—those that involve “a failure to report the existence of an account or any identifying information required to be provided with respect to an account.” §5321(a)(5)(D)(ii). In cases like that, the law authorizes the Secretary to impose
- ↑ What, if any, mens rea the government must prove to impose a “nonwillful” penalty is not before us.
