What the Courts Just Told Cross-Border Families

I do not give tax advice, and nothing here is legal analysis for your situation. What follows is pattern recognition from the financing side: three court decisions, all real and linked in the sources, that together describe how the cross-border information environment has changed, and what that means for anyone with money, property or filing obligations on both sides of the border.

Deegan: the data pipeline is legal and running

In Deegan v. Canada (Attorney General), 2022 FCA 158, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld the Canadian legislation implementing FATCA, under which Canadian financial institutions report account information that the CRA passes to the IRS. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the appeal in 2023, which ended the challenge. The practical reading for cross-border families: account information moves between Ottawa and Washington as routine administration, confirmed by the courts. Anyone with US status and Canadian accounts, or the reverse, should assume visibility in both directions.

Bittner: relief exists, but read what it actually says

In Bittner v. United States, 598 U.S. 85 (2023), the US Supreme Court held that the penalty for non-willful failure to file the FBAR foreign-account report accrues per report, not per account, cutting the taxpayer's bill from 2.72 million dollars to 50,000. Two flags belong on this. First, even the relieved number is 10,000 dollars per unfiled year for a form many dual filers have never heard of. Second, the ruling protects only non-willful failures; willful ones remain exposed per account. Relief that leaves a five-figure bill for paperwork is not amnesty, and the filing obligation itself did not move an inch.

Ne'eman: when the state decides to move, it moves fast

In Canada (National Revenue) v. Ne'eman Foundation Canada, 2025 FC 670, the Federal Court upheld a jeopardy order allowing immediate collection action where the Minister showed collection was at risk, stripping away the usual delays. Jeopardy orders are uncommon in personal files, but the decision is a live reminder that the gap between a letter and an enforcement action is a policy choice, not a law of nature. Planning that depends on the agency staying slow is not planning.

The pattern, and the financing consequence

Put the three together: information crosses the border automatically and lawfully, penalties for silent non-compliance survive even taxpayer-friendly rulings, and enforcement can accelerate without warning. Inside financing files this shows up concretely. Undisclosed accounts surface when underwriting asks for statements. Unfiled cross-border forms surface when income needs documenting. A tax balance that felt dormant surfaces as a registered claim exactly when a refinance was supposed to close. The clients who navigate this well are not the ones with the cleverest structures; they are the ones whose paperwork matches reality before a lender, or an agency, goes looking.

If any paragraph above described your situation, the next call is to cross-border tax counsel, not to a lender. The financing conversation works best after the filing picture is honest, and I would rather tell you that plainly than build a file that unravels in underwriting.

Related: Cross-border tax traps for Canadian homebuyers · Case files · Tax debt and your home in 2026 (Canada)