U.S. House tax committee weighs crypto bills, including relief for small transactions

Seven draft bills are being circulated by the House Ways and Means Committee ahead of a hearing next week, including proposals to ease small-gain, mining and staking burdens.

What to know:

• The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is circulating seven crypto tax bill drafts that would tackle a number of the industry's tax priorities.
• The committee is set to have a hearing next week on June 9 to discuss the ideas, which address "de minimis" transactions, stablecoin activity and the proceeds of mining and staking.

A set of seven crypto tax bills are being circulated in advance of a hearing of the U.S. House Ways and Means committee next week, with each of the legislative drafts tackling its own narrow aspect of digital assets tax treatment, including relaxing demands for taxes on small transactions and the assets gains in mining and staking.

The committee that oversees tax issues is set to discuss the ideas on June 9, and the legislative text indicates that the panel is targeting a number of areas with focused bills. The various proposals include eliminating tax demands on certain small ( or "de minimis") transactions, stablecoin activity and network fees; governing the taxation of assets acquired through crypto mining; melding digital assets with existing tax treatment of securities; applying so-called wash sale rules to crypto; and cutting out an appraisal requirement in digital asset donations to charity.

Reducing the mining and staking tax burden is a major component of the industry's tax-policy strategy, focused on eliminating double taxation in which the assets are taxed both at the time of acquisition and at the point of sale. One of the draft bills seeks to address that issue.

Cody Carbone, the CEO of the Digital Chamber, said in a statement he welcomes the coming hearing as a chance "to refine these proposals and keep the bipartisan tax effort moving forward." He added that his organization will work with the committee "to strengthen the drafts and deliver the tax clarity and fairness digital assets deserve."

Though the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has been the top U.S. policy focus of the crypto industry, Washington lobbyists have routinely said that crypto tax policy was next in line. There have been a number of previous efforts to tackle the lack of clarity on what should constitute a taxable gain in the digital assets space, including an initiative pushed by Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who leads a digital assets subcommittee in the Senate Banking Committee.

Lummis has sought and failed to get traction on the ideas several times, including an unsuccessful attempt to get them attached last year to the Republican's One Big Beautiful Bill spending package.

The arrival of bipartisan crypto tax efforts in the House comes fairly late in the congressional session, though there will be a number of must-pass bills this year that could have items attached to them.

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