Opinion of the Court
said that a person may invoke the reasonable cause exception only on a showing of per-account accuracy. But the one thing Congress did not say is that the government may impose nonwillful penalties on a per-account basis. Conspicuously, the one place in the statute where the government needs per-account language to appear is the one place it does not. In the end, the government’s per-account theory faces not just a single expressio unius challenge but two.[1]
The dissent founders on the same shoals. It suggests that the “pattern” of account-specific language in the willful penalty provision and the reasonable cause exception “connot[es]” that the nonwillful penalty provision must operate on a per-account basis. Post, at 4, 7 (opinion of Barrett, J.). But (again), just because two provisions in the law are similar does not mean we may ignore differences found in a third. Seeking a way around the problem, the dissent points to the fact that even a single qualifying foreign bank account “triggers” the duty to file a report, and the fact that a compliant report must contain a “list of information” about bank addresses and the like. Post, at 2–3. These features of the law, the dissent says, “underscor[e]” that nonwillful violations accrue per account. Post, at 2. But that simply does not follow. The fact that a person has a duty to file a report, or provide certain information in a report, does not tell us whether penalties for nonwillful violations accrue per report or multiply per account without regard to an individual’s net worth or foreign holdings.[2]
- ↑ What if an individual (like Mr. Bittner) fails to file a timely report and later files an inaccurate one—would the statute classify that as two violations of the duty to file a statutorily compliant report rather than one? The parties do not join issue on the question and we do not pass upon it. Nor does the answer matter for present purposes. Either way, the statute conditions nonwillful penalties on the number of reports, not on the number of accounts.
- ↑ The dissent also stresses that 31 U. S. C. §5314 imposes two duties—a duty to file reports and keep records. Post, at 3. From this, the dissent
