Opinion of the Court
a maximum penalty of either $100,000 or 50% of “the balance in the account at the time of the violation”—whichever is greater. §§5321(a)(5)(C) and (D)(ii). So here, at last, the law does tailor penalties to accounts. But the statute does so only for a certain category of cases that involve willful violations, not for cases like ours that involve only nonwillful violations.
No surprise, the government seeks to turn this feature of the law to its advantage. Because Congress explicitly authorized per-account penalties for some willful violations, the government asks us to infer that Congress meant to do so for analogous nonwillful violations as well. Brief for United States 20–23. But, in truth, this line of reasoning cuts against the government. When Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it from a neighbor, we normally understand that difference in language to convey a difference in meaning (expressio unius est exclusio alterius). The government’s interpretation defies this traditional rule of statutory construction. See, e.g., Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U. S. 383, 391 (2015); Gallardo v. Marstiller, 596 U. S. ___, ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 7, 9).
The government’s problem repeats itself too. Section 5321(a)(5)(B)(ii) contains a “[r]easonable cause exception.” That exception allows an individual to escape a penalty (say for filing late) only if his violation was nonwillful, “due to reasonable cause,” and the report he eventually files accurately reflects each and every account.[1] All of which supplies further evidence that, when Congress wished to tie sanctions to account-level information, it knew exactly how to do so. Congress said that penalties for certain willful violations may be measured on a per-account basis. Congress
- ↑ At argument, the government explained that the reasonable cause exception works in this fashion to protect those who file a late FBAR so long as the report they eventually file accurately provides the required information. Tr. of Oral Arg. 57–58.
