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White Collar Crime

Your $100,000 Fraud Loss Is Worth Two Fewer Levels on November 1: The Guidelines Just Rewrote the Money Tables and the Grouping Rules

The U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously promulgated seven amendments on April 16, 2026. Two of them cut white collar exposure: every dollar threshold in the Manual rises for the first time since 2015, and the multiple-count grouping rules collapse into a single guideline that takes the highest offense level instead of adding across guidelines. A $100,000 loss scores +8 through October 31 and +6 on November 1. Here is what changes, who it reaches, and why the date of your sentencing hearing now matters more than almost anything else in the file.

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Your $100,000 Fraud Loss Is Worth Two Fewer Levels on November 1: The Guidelines Just Rewrote the Money Tables and the Grouping Rules

A defendant pleading to wire fraud with a $100,000 loss scores an eight-level enhancement under the loss table through October 31, 2026. The same defendant, on the same facts, scores six levels on November 1. For someone sitting at adjusted offense level 14 in Criminal History Category I, those two levels are the difference between 15 to 21 months in Zone D, where the guidelines permit imprisonment only, and 8 to 14 months in Zone B, where the minimum term can be satisfied by home detention and probation becomes available. Not a shorter prison sentence. A different kind of sentence.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission promulgated seven amendments by unanimous vote on April 16, 2026 and submitted them to Congress on April 30, 2026, inside the statutory window set by 28 U.S.C. § 994(p). Absent contrary congressional action they take effect November 1, 2026 by operation of law. Two of the seven rewrite federal white collar sentencing: the Inflationary Adjustments amendment, which raises every monetary table in the Manual, and the Multiple Counts amendment, which deletes five guidelines and replaces them with one.

What the Commission actually did, and what it did not do

The package contains seven amendments: Simplification, Inflationary Adjustments, Drug Offenses, Multiple Counts, Sentencing Options, Miscellaneous, and Technical. The Commission's April 16 press release describes the economic crime inflation adjustment as the first in more than ten years and notes the elimination of more than twenty specific offense characteristics, some dating to 1987. Proposed amendments were published December 19, 2025 and February 6, 2026, with public hearings on February 17 and March 9, 2026, per the Commission's Federal Register notice.

Now the correction that matters, because it is circulating in published guidance. The December 2025 proposals to restructure the §2B1.1 loss table into wider brackets, and to add culpability and victim-harm specific offense characteristics such as noneconomic harm, emotional trauma, and mitigating provisions for employer pressure, were not promulgated. Several law firm alerts issued after promulgation, including a Benesch Law piece titled "New Sentencing Guidelines For Economic Crimes Effective November 1, 2026," describe the restructured table and the new victim-harm factors as adopted law. They are not. The words "noneconomic," "emotional," and "restructur" appear nowhere in the promulgated amendment text. If you are building a sentencing memorandum on one of those alerts, rebuild it on the reader-friendly amendment text. What passed on the economic-crime side is an inflation adjustment and nothing more.

The money tables, in plain language

The monetary tables are a staircase. Each dollar threshold is a step, and crossing it adds levels. Because those thresholds had not moved since 2015, inflation had been quietly walking defendants up the staircase for eleven years: the same real-world conduct scored higher every year simply because the dollar figures stood still.

The Commission's fix is mechanical. It applied a CPI multiplier of 1.36 ($1.00 in 2014 equals $1.36 in 2025), then applied rounding rules extrapolated from § 5(a) of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, the same method used in 2015. Rounding runs to the nearest $50,000 above $100,000, $500,000 above $1 million, $5 million above $10 million, and $50 million above $100 million. The adjustment reaches §§2B1.1, 2B2.1, 2B3.1, 2R1.1, 2T4.1, 5E1.2, and 8C2.4, plus fifteen other Chapter Two guidelines.

New §2B1.1(b)(1) loss table, effective November 1, 2026

  • $9,000 or less: no increase (the floor was $6,500)

  • More than $9,000: +2

  • More than $20,000: +4

  • More than $55,000: +6

  • More than $150,000: +8

  • More than $200,000: +10

  • More than $350,000: +12

  • More than $750,000: +14

  • More than $2,000,000: +16

  • More than $5,000,000: +18

  • More than $15,000,000: +20

  • More than $35,000,000: +22

  • More than $90,000,000: +24

  • More than $200,000,000: +26

  • More than $350,000,000: +28

  • More than $750,000,000: +30

Two brackets moved by 1.58x, well above the 1.36 CPI multiplier, because of how the rounding rules landed. The +8 threshold rose from $95,000 to $150,000, and the +20 threshold rose from $9.5 million to $15 million. Those are the widest windows of relief in the table. A $100,000 loss, which exceeds the old $95,000 line, drops from +8 to +6. A $550,000 loss falls from +14 to +12. A $9.5 million loss falls from +20 to +18.

New §2T4.1 tax table, old versus new

Offense levelTax loss more than (current)Tax loss more than (Nov. 1, 2026)

12$15,000$20,000 14$40,000$55,000 16$100,000$150,000 18$250,000$350,000 20$550,000$750,000 22$1.5 million$2 million 26$9.5 million$15 million

Who this actually reaches

The Commission ran the numbers on its own FY2024 caseload and published them in a public data briefing on the economic offenses amendments. The inflation adjustment would have lowered the offense level by two for:

  • 37% of individuals sentenced under §2B1.1 (fraud, theft, embezzlement)

  • 34% of individuals sentenced under the §2T4.1 tax table (451 individuals)

  • 13% of individuals sentenced under §2R1.1 (antitrust)

By one level, it would have reached 4% of 1,291 robbery defendants under §2B2.1 and 8% of 52 burglary defendants under §2B3.1. And because eighteen other guidelines cross-reference the loss table, 12% of the 3,229 individuals sentenced under those guidelines would see a change, including 14% of money laundering defendants under §2S1.1. The adjustment is not confined to garden-variety fraud; it flows through the tax table and the laundering guideline as well.

The Commission supplied its own translation: a two-level decrease is "generally associated with a 25 percent reduction in the guideline range."

Grouping, part one: what the old machine did

Chapter Three, Part D handled multiple counts through five guidelines, §§3D1.1 through 3D1.5, and a three-step process. Counts were sorted into groups of closely related conduct. Each group got an offense level. Then the group levels were converted into "units" by comparative seriousness: the most serious group counted as one unit, a group within four levels of it counted as one unit, a group five to eight levels below counted as half a unit, and a group nine or more levels below counted as zero. The unit total was then run through the §3D1.4 table to produce an increase of one to five levels.

Per the Commission's multiple counts data briefing, the rules applied in roughly 10,800 FY2024 cases, about one fifth of the roughly 60,000 sentenced with complete guideline data. In the 1,797 cases where a §3D1.4 adjustment actually landed, it raised the average guideline minimum by 28 months, or 16%. The Commission also documented why it was rebuilding the machine: it "receives hundreds of calls every year with questions from practitioners about multiple count rules application" and "continues to observe application errors, potentially resulting in unwarranted sentencing disparities."

Grouping, part two: the new §3D1.1

Five guidelines become one. New §3D1.1 sorts counts into three buckets and then applies a single tiebreak:

  • (a) Aggregate-harm guidelines. Counts sharing a listed guideline where harm aggregates are computed on the combined behavior. The list includes §§2B1.1, 2B1.4, 2B1.5, 2B4.1, 2B5.1, 2B5.3, 2B6.1, 2C1.1, 2C1.2, 2C1.8, 2D1.1, 2S1.1, 2S1.3, 2T1.1, 2T1.4, and 2R1.1, largely the same guidelines that required aggregation under old §3D1.2(d).

  • (b) Person-offense guidelines. Counts sharing a listed guideline that involve different victims or different occasions get a flat, count-based increase: 2 counts is +2, 3 counts is +3, 4 or 5 counts is +4, 6 or more counts is +5. The list is Chapter Two Part A offenses plus §§2B2.1, 2B3.1, 2B3.2, 2B3.3, 2G1.1, 2G1.3, 2G2.1, 2H1.1, 2J1.2, 2J1.3, and 2K1.4, among others.

  • (c) Everything else is computed separately.

  • (d) The court takes the highest offense level produced by (a), (b), or (c). It does not add them.

  • (e) The existing carve-outs for 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and § 1028A counts carry forward unchanged.

One point of shorthand worth correcting, because it is already being repeated wrong: this is a count-based table, not a unit-based one. The unit system is abolished. The revised Part D introduction states that increases are now assigned "based solely on the number of counts instead of a unit system."

Relevant conduct survives intact. The amendment relocates the content of old §3D1.2(d) into new §1B1.3(d) so that §1B1.3(a)(2) continues to function, and the Commission states it "intends for relevant conduct to function identically to how it had before the amendment." Uncharged same-scheme loss still aggregates.

The buried lede for white collar defense

Because subsection (d) takes the highest result and never sums across buckets, and because, in the Commission's words, "no adjustment applies based solely on counts using different guidelines," the classic multi-guideline white collar indictment stops generating levels. Fraud plus tax adds nothing. Fraud plus a firearm count adds nothing. Under the old rules those pairings ran through §3D1.4 and produced one or two levels: among the 1,797 FY2024 cases actually impacted by a §3D1.4 adjustment, an economic guideline paired with a tax guideline was the second most common combination at 6%, and economic plus firearm was 4%.

Read honestly, though, this is not a defense giveaway. The Commission calls the amendment outcome-neutral overall: 93% of the nearly 11,000 FY2024 multiple-count cases and 99% of all FY2024 cases would see no change in sentence, and the average sentence across all multiple-count cases moves from 99.5 months to 98.9 months. In the January 2026 analysis of the proposal, 85% saw no offense-level change, 8% went up by an average of one level, and 7% went down by an average of two. The increases concentrate in the subsection (b) person-offense list, where the flat count table can exceed what the old unit math produced. Run the arithmetic before assuming direction.

The worked example, run twice

Assume Criminal History Category I, no other adjustments. The defendant pleads to three counts of wire fraud with a $100,000 loss and one count of tax evasion with a $50,000 tax loss. The fraud and tax counts do not group with each other.

Sentenced October 2026

  • Fraud group: base 7, plus 8 for loss exceeding $95,000, equals 15

  • Tax group: 14 (tax loss exceeds $40,000)

  • §3D1.4: two units, +2 levels, equals 17

  • Acceptance of responsibility: minus 3 (available at level 16 or higher), equals 14

  • Zone D, 15 to 21 months. Imprisonment only.

Sentenced November 2026

  • Fraud counts under §3D1.1(a): base 7, plus 6 for loss exceeding $55,000 but not $150,000, equals 13

  • Tax count computed separately under §3D1.1(c): 12

  • §3D1.1(d) takes the highest: 13

  • Acceptance of responsibility: minus 2, because the third point requires level 16 or higher, equals 11

  • Zone B, 8 to 14 months. Probation with home detention available.

Two wrinkles. First, the net gain is three levels, not four, because dropping below level 16 costs the third acceptance point. Second, if the non-grouping guideline is the higher one, subsection (d) will select it and the loss-table change may not move the bottom line at all. The zone boundaries themselves are unchanged, though the Sentencing Options amendment codifies a new §5A1.1 spelling out the options per zone. In CHC I, Zone A is levels 1 to 8, Zone B is 9 to 11, Zone C is 12 to 13, and Zone D is 14 and up. A two-level drop that crosses 14 to 13, or 13 to 11, changes the type of sentence available, not just its length.

Sentencing before November 1: the continuance question

Treat this as arithmetic, not instinct. Compute both ranges before you file anything, and then ask four questions:

  • Does the client actually cross a bracket, or sit mid-bracket where nothing moves?

  • Does a statutory mandatory minimum or a §5G1.1 cap swallow the benefit?

  • Is the court already varying below the range, which may make the guideline change academic?

  • Is the client detained, meaning the delay is served in custody?

If the numbers justify a later date, understand the mechanics. No defendant has a right to a continuance in order to be sentenced under a future Manual. Defense-side practitioner guidance, including an ArentFox Schiff alert on the loss thresholds, notes that counsel with a pre-November 1 date may seek an adjournment past the effective date and that counsel who cannot move the date can ask the court to consider the forthcoming amendments in support of a variance. Frame the motion around avoiding an unwarranted disparity between similarly situated defendants, not around shopping for a Manual. Courts respond differently to those two framings.

If the date holds: the variance and the record

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(A)(ii) the court applies the Manual in effect at sentencing, so on October 31 the new tables are not law. But the Commission's promulgated judgment that current thresholds overstate harm is squarely §3553(a) material, and §3553(a)(6) supplies the disparity argument between a defendant sentenced on October 31 and one sentenced on November 2 on identical facts.

Three practical steps. Object in writing to the presentence report. Get the alternative post-amendment calculation stated on the record, in numbers, not in argument. And ask the court to articulate whether the forthcoming amendment influenced the sentence it imposed. That record is what any future retroactivity vote or appellate argument will run on, and it costs nothing to build now.

Ex post facto and the one-book rule, correctly stated

§1B1.11(a) requires the Manual in effect on the date of sentencing. §1B1.11(b)(1) substitutes the offense-date Manual only if using the sentencing-date Manual "would violate the ex post facto clause," which is a one-way ratchet: it triggers only when the newer Manual is harsher. Because these amendments lower exposure, there is no constitutional obstacle and no election to make. A defendant sentenced on or after November 1, 2026 gets the 2026 Manual automatically.

§1B1.11(b)(2) then forbids cherry-picking: "the Guidelines Manual in effect on a particular date shall be applied in its entirety." That is normally where a client gets trapped, because the fine tables in this package went up, sharply. New §5E1.2 maximums at levels 16 to 17 rise from $95,000 to $150,000, and the new §8C2.4 base fine at level 28 rises from $10 million to $15 million. The Commission built the firewall itself: the amendment adds a special instruction to §§5E1.2 and 8C2.4 directing courts, for offenses committed on or after November 1, 2015 but before November 1, 2026, to use the fine guideline range from the version of §5E1.2(c) in effect on November 1, 2025. The one-book rule does not hand the government a larger fine as the price of a smaller loss enhancement.

The mirror image is worth noting for completeness. A defendant whose calculation gets worse under new §3D1.1(b), and whose offense predates November 1, 2026, can invoke §1B1.11(b)(1) and demand the 2025 Manual. That defendant gives up the loss-table benefit in the same motion. All or nothing, both directions.

Already sentenced: appeals, remands, and the retroactivity wall

Direct appeal buys nothing on its own. Appellate review is for error at the time of sentencing, and a guideline amendment is not a change in statutory law that follows a case up on appeal.

Resentencing on remand is genuinely unsettled, and this article will not pretend otherwise. 18 U.S.C. § 3742(g)(1) directs that on a remand under §3742(f)(1) or (f)(2), the district court "shall apply the guidelines ... that were in effect on the date of the previous sentencing of the defendant prior to the appeal." That text points away from the new tables, while §1B1.11(a) points to the date of resentencing. Section 3742's companion provisions were excised by Booker, and circuits treat §3742(g) inconsistently. Check your circuit before asserting a rule to a client.

Then the wall. Neither amendment is retroactive. Per Legal Information Services Associates, reporting on the Commission's June 2026 posture, three commissioners voted to make the inflationary adjustment retroactive, short of the four affirmative votes 28 U.S.C. § 994(a)(2) requires for Commission action, and the Commission declined even to solicit public comment or hold a hearing on retroactivity for any of the 2026 amendments. Per the Commission's June 4, 2026 retroactivity impact analysis as reported by that newsletter, nearly 5,000 federal prisoners would have become eligible under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) had the inflation and multiple-count amendments been designated retroactive.

Without a §1B1.10(d) listing there is no §3582(c)(2) vehicle, and the 2026 package does not amend §1B1.10. Compassionate release is not a workaround. §1B1.13(b)(6) expressly excludes "an amendment to the Guidelines Manual that has not been made retroactive," and in Rutherford v. United States, No. 24-820 (May 28, 2026), the Supreme Court held 6-3 (Barrett, J., with Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting) that when Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive, the resulting disparity cannot serve as an extraordinary and compelling reason under §3582(c)(1)(A)(i). That door is closed, and knowing it is closed is worth more to a client than a motion that will be denied.

What to watch

The amendments are not final until November 1. Congress retains authority to disapprove or modify submitted amendments before the effective date, so counsel banking on a post-November 1 sentencing date should not treat the new tables as locked. The Commission can also vote retroactivity in a later cycle, and the inflation adjustment to the loss tables is the most likely candidate if a fourth commissioner seat is filled. Practitioners with clients sentenced between 2015 and 2026 should preserve the alternative calculation now, in writing, so that a future §1B1.10 listing becomes a filing exercise rather than a reconstruction project.

The Simplification amendment in the same package deletes 26 specific offense characteristics that did not apply at all in the last five fiscal years, which is a modest but real reduction in the number of places a calculation can go wrong.

The standing caveat

Every guideline calculation in this article is illustrative. Each assumes Criminal History Category I and no adjustments beyond the ones named, and each turns on facts a presentence report will contest: how loss is calculated, how many victims there are, and whether particular counts group at all. This is general information about federal sentencing law, not legal advice about any case. Re-run every figure against the actual PSR and against your circuit's law before relying on it.

Sources

Note: This article contains AI-assisted content and has been reviewed by our editorial team.

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Gavel Daily is an AI-operated publication. Articles may summarize statutes, court filings, or public reporting, but readers should verify time-sensitive legal details with primary sources or a licensed attorney.

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