Generating Opportunity through Collaboration, Clarity, and Compliance

The House Ways and Means Committee recently offered a window into what the legislative body is working on when it comes to developing legislation to govern the taxation of digital assets, highlighting six bills and a discussion draft covering a range of topics.

As part of the development, the committee held a June 9, 2026, hearing to solicit commentary from industry on the bills, during which committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) called the “digital asset status quo is untenable. America needs clear tax rules of the road to remain the crypto capital of the world.”

Smith stated that cryptocurrency has “a market capitalization of over $2 trillion. That’s a massive industry by any measure, and nearly all other industries of a similar size enjoy clear tax policies.”

Chairman Smith noted that more and more people own cryptocurrency and “nearly a quarter of cryptocurrency holders earn less than $75,000 and the average crypto holder is nearly as likely to work in construction, manufacturing, or food service as tech or finance.”

The bills and discussion draft include:

The Applying Existing Tax Anti-Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act (H.R. 9172)
The Charitable Deductions for Digital Donations Act (H.R. 9173)
The Digital Assets Voluntary Disclosure Program Act (H.R. 9174)
The Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act (H.R. 9175)
The Providing Analogous Rules for Digital Assets Act (H.R. 9176)
The Less Tax Paperwork for Digital Asset Owners Act (H.R. 9178)
The End Digital Assets Tax Shelters Act (Discussion Draft)

The proposed legislation address “three key gaps in the current tax regime that make it harder for Americans to fully participate in the digital asset ecosystem,”

First, he said, “common digital transactions like mining and staking do not fit clearly into existing tax law. In other places, the tax code is silent as to the treatment of digital assets. The ambiguity creates an opening for taxpayers to exploit the law and avoid paying taxes in some circumstances and creates unfair tax burdens on others.

Second, Smith stated that “digital assets do not receive the tax benefit nor the protection from anti-abuse rules long granted to traditional financial assets. The imbalance between digital assets and traditional financial assets creates a two-tier system that unintentionally favor certain assets over others.”

Third, “crypto owners face burdensome tax compliance that makes using digital assets in ordinary commerce almost impossible.” Smith noted that “31 percent of crypto owners would like to buy a cup of coffee at the local shop, yet each $5 cup of coffee bought with a digital asset generates two new pieces of tax paperwork,” which adds a significant burden to both the IRS and the taxpayer.

Ranking Member Richard Neal (R-Mass.) had mixed reviews on the bills. He described his initial observation as some of the bills being “quite sensible, providing clear rules of the road for taxpayers looking to comply with the law. Other provisions sought the common sense goal of alleviating burdensome paperwork requirements, especially in situations where it’s highly unlikely that there would be any tax associated with those transactions, and indeed there are provisions that would close loopholes that are specific to the digital asset industry.”

However, Neal also noted that “it appears there are some provisions that deviate substantially from general tax principles, providing a distinct advantage that are beyond some other investments. We want to be careful about putting a thumb on the scale, and as we all know, it’s much easier to put something into the tax code than it is to take it out.”

Lawrence Zlatkin, Coinbase vice president of tax, testified during the hearing that the bills “represent the most comprehensive effort to modernize digital asset taxation that we have seen to date. Most importantly, this legislation recognized a fundamental reality: market structure and tax policy go hand-in-hand.”

In particular, Zlatkin highlighted H.R. 9178, which he testified “is an important step forward towards making stablecoin payments practical while reducing unnecessary reporting noise,” as well as H.R. 9173, which “provides long-needed clarity for mining and staking rewards, helping ensure taxpayers are not forced into tax obligations before they’ve generated liquidity though an actual sale.”

Mike Kaercher, deputy director of the Tax Law Center at New York University, cautioned that as the bills move through the process, “I encourage policymakers to consider three tax policy principles most closely: parity, administrability, and guardrails to prevent abuse. Some of the provisions in these bills would make improvements consistent with these principles.”

Among those, Kaercher testified that for example, “one of the bills would extend anti-abuse regimes, like wash sale rules and constructive sale rules, to digital assets. That’s a good idea. Another example is the de minimis provision on qualifying stablecoins – a targeted approach with guardrails can reduce paperwork and compliance burdens without creating substantial hidden tax subsidies for digital assets, but the rule should remain targeted because a broader de minimis provision risks abuse and would favor investments in digital assets over those in traditional finance.”

On the provision of deferring tax on mining and staking rewards, Kaercher testified that deferral “isn’t just the distortive subsidy, it could also undermine administrability. Deferral increases complexity for taxpayers and makes it harder for the IRS to do its job.”

He also warned about the possibility of government bailouts if guardrails and policy are not correctly developed.

“I think one thing for policymakers to consider on this is that if digital assets become a larger part of retirement accounts and the assets remain highly volatile, or in a worst-case scenario, crash, that would have an enormous impact on households’ retirement savings, and if that were to happen, I think policymakers would have to think about whether to respond with something like a bailout.”

Newsletters

Phaseout Limits

Credit Amount Adjustments

Annual Statistical Area Category and Coal Closure Category Update