Department of the Treasury: removing regulations that are no longer necessary or no longer have any current or future applicability

April 15, 2025 / Source: Department of the Treasury

On April 9, 2025, the President issued a Presidential Memorandum, Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations, to implement Executive Order 14219, Ensuring Lawful Governance And Implementing The President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative (Deregulatory E.O.), 90 FR 10583 (Feb. 19, 2025). The Deregulatory E.O. directed the heads of executive departments and agencies to review their regulations and repeal those which are unlawful or impose undue burdens, among other things.

This Direct Final Rule

This direct final rule removes regulations and portions of regulations that are no longer necessary, or have no current or future applicability and, therefore, no longer provide useful guidance. Removing these regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations will streamline titles 12 and 31 and increase clarity

Civil Penalty, 31 CFR 1010.820

In accordance with the purposes described above, Treasury, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), is eliminating the civil penalty rule codified at 31 CFR 1010.820.

Section 1010.820 described the civil penalties for certain violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.^[1] This rule removes 31 CFR 1010.820 entirely because its penalty provisions were made obsolete by changes to FinCEN regulations under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, 28 U.S.C. 2461 note (Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act), that are codified in the civil penalty provisions of 31 CFR 1010.821. Specifically, the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act, as amended, requires agencies to issue regulations making annual adjustments reflecting the effect of inflation for civil penalties expressed in terms of a dollar amount. Those inflation adjustments are laid out in 31 CFR 1010.821 and updated annually, and 31 CFR 1010.820 expressly noted that 31 CFR 1010.821 applied to all penalties assessed after August 1, 2016. Thus, as a result of 31 CFR 1010.821‘s penalty provisions, 31 CFR 1010.820 is redundant, and its continued inclusion in FinCEN’s regulations served no purpose.