Are the penalties for willful failure to report foreign accounts constitutional? The fine for willful failures can be as large as 50% of the account value, and if there are multiple years, it can exceed the amount in the unreported account. Same say a penalty of that size is an excessive fine barred by the Eighth Amendment.

The Supreme Court recently declined to weigh in on this controversial issue. After a federal appeals court upheld a $1.1-million penalty against a U.S. individual who willfully failed to report a Swiss bank account, she asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling, in part relying on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines. But the high court refused to take the case, so the penalty stands.