Tax Court Again Rejects Trial Requirement for FBAR Penalties

The US Tax Court again turned away arguments that a recent US Supreme Court ruling requires a jury trial before the IRS can assess penalties for unreported foreign bank accounts.

Judge Travis A. Greaves said the high court’s decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy—which negated penalties assessed by an in-house SEC tribunal because it ran afoul of the Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury—didn’t apply to fines the IRS assessed Raju Mukhi for failure to report foreign bank accounts, or FBAR.

Mukhi said the fraud penalties, assessed under IRC Section 6663 and which can be ...