Key Takeaways:
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is circulating seven draft bills that would overhaul how the IRS taxes digital assets, from small everyday purchases to mining and staking rewards.
The House tax-writing committee released seven draft bills on June 5 that would exempt small crypto transactions from tax reporting, defer taxes on mining and staking rewards until sale, and apply wash sale rules to digital assets for the first time, ahead of a June 9 hearing.
"We welcome the chance to refine these proposals and keep the bipartisan tax effort moving forward," Cody Carbone, chief executive officer of the Digital Chamber, said in a statement. His organization plans to work with the committee "to strengthen the drafts and deliver the tax clarity and fairness digital assets deserve."
The package includes the Digital Asset PARITY Act, introduced May 19 by Representatives Max Miller and Steven Horsford, which would stop routine payment transactions from triggering tax reporting. A separate Senate proposal from Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, had previously sought a $300 de minimis exemption with a $5,000 annual cap. The bills would also let validators and miners defer income from block rewards until they sell, addressing the phantom income problem that taxes tokens before holders cash them out. Other provisions would extend securities lending rules to digital assets, let active traders elect mark-to-market accounting, and require a 30-day waiting period before claiming a tax loss on crypto — matching rules that already apply to stock investors.
The arrival of committee-backed crypto tax legislation late in the congressional session leaves a narrow window for passage, though several must-pass bills this year could serve as vehicles for attaching the measures. Lummis failed to attach similar provisions to the Republican's One Big Beautiful Bill spending package last year, showing the challenge of advancing crypto tax reform through a divided Congress.
Industry Priorities and the Path Forward
Though the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has been the industry's top legislative priority in Washington, lobbyists have consistently described crypto tax policy as the next frontier. The seven-bill package breaks a broader bipartisan tax framework into standalone proposals that lawmakers can advance separately, increasing the odds that at least some provisions survive.
The mining and staking provisions target double taxation, where rewards are taxed both at acquisition and at sale. The PARITY Act would also simplify charitable donation rules for liquid tokens while curbing abuse from speculative ones. Stablecoin transactions and network fees would be excluded from taxable event treatment under the proposals.
The committee's effort represents the first crypto tax push backed by leadership of either the House or Senate tax-writing committees, according to Bloomberg Law. The Treasury Department has not yet issued a formal position on the draft bills.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
