Taxpayer Paid Part of JP Morgan's "Penalty" Because...

The government made sure to not call it a "penalty".

Taibbi noted that $7 billion of the settlement was tax deductible, meaning “American taxpayers coughed up $2.4 billion of this settlement for JP Morgan Chase. An ordinary person, when they suffer a criminal penalty, they cannot deduct that from their taxes… because the government very specifically did not call this a ‘penalty’ in the settlement … that allows the bank to deduct that money, which means all of us get to pay a big chunk of that fine for them. Which is incredible.”