The Justice Department has unveiled a more than $16.6 billion settlement with Bank of America over its sale of toxic residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS. Attorney General Eric Holder said the deal is the largest civil settlement with a single entity in history.

Eric Holder: “As a part of this settlement, Bank of America has acknowledged that in the years leading up to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008, it, Merrill Lynch and Countrywide sold billions of dollars of RMBS backed by toxic loans whose quality and level of risk they knowingly misrepresented to investors and to the United States government.”

The settlement includes $7 billion in relief measures for homeowners, meaning the bank’s actual burden is likely far less than the record total announced. Critics say very few homeowners will actually benefit compared to the millions who lost their homes to foreclosure during the financial crisis. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group says Bank of America could receive approximately $5.6 billion in tax deductions from the deal, a burden that would be shifted onto taxpayers.