Barrett, J., dissenting
implementing regulations required Bittner to file one report per year of each qualifying foreign financial account that he maintained. Each failure to report an account is a discrete violation regardless of whether the violations were clustered on a single form.
The Court does not just misread §5314; it misreads §5321 too. It points out that account-specific language is present in the reasonable cause and willful penalty provisions but absent in the provisions setting the nonwillful penalty. Because “Congress generally acts intentionally when it uses particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another,” Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U. S. 383, 391 (2015), the Court takes the contrast as evidence that nonwillful penalties cannot apply on a per-account basis. Ante, at 6–8 (invoking the expressio unius canon).
Not so. The expressio unius canon is a general rule, inapplicable where context suggests otherwise—as it does here. Congress capped the penalty for a nonwillful violation at a flat $10,000. §5321(a)(5)(B)(i). Because the penalty amount does not depend on the balance in an account, Congress had no reason to use account-specific language. By contrast, the maximum penalty for a willful violation is the greater of $100,000 or 50 percent of the account balance at the time of the violation, and the reasonable cause exception lifts a penalty only if the account balance was properly reported. §§5321(a)(5)(B)(ii), (C)(i), (D)(ii). Because the application of both provisions depends on the account balance, Congress needed to use account-specific language. The reason why Congress included account-specific language in only two of these three provisions is therefore readily apparent. Regardless, the variation in language does not do much for the Court. These provisions in §5321 explain the varying penalties that the Secretary may assess for a violation of §5314 but do not alter the nature of the underlying conduct that constitutes a violation. Boyd, 991 F. 3d, at
