Federal Income Taxation

In 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a handful of published opinions involving U.S. federal income tax issues. One of those cases, United States v. Schwarzbaum, presented an issue of first impression in the Eleventh Circuit: whether civil penalties for a U.S. citizen or resident’s willful failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (commonly known as the “FBAR”) are “fines” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment and, therefore, are subject to the constitutional prohibition on excessive fines. This Article surveys that opinion.