Congress to Weigh Six Crypto Tax Bills as Lawmakers Argue Over How Generous "De Minimis" Can Get 🧾

The House Ways and Means Committee convened Tuesday at 2pm ET to examine six Republican-authored crypto tax bills, broadcast live on the committee's YouTube channel, with witnesses drawn from Fidelity, Coinbase, Coin Center, and NYU Law's Tax Law Center. The hearing marked the first time congressional leadership in either chamber has moved tax-focused digital asset legislation into public debate, covering de minimis exemptions, the tax treatment of crypto staking and mining rewards, and a proposed IRS safe harbor for prior failures to report crypto gains. The bills follow a package of Republican drafts released last week and come as House Republicans have pressed the IRS to scrap guidance taxing staking rewards when received, a position Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) previewed months earlier by proposing to let miners and stakers defer taxes until rewards are sold.

The most contentious proposal would exempt crypto generated through staking and mining from an individual's reportable income at the time of receipt. Under current rules, staking rewards and newly mined crypto must be reported as income when a user receives the tokens, regardless of whether those rewards are later sold or exchanged. Democrats, including pro-crypto members of the party, warned Tuesday that deferring tax on such rewards could make crypto more attractive than traditional taxable investments like corporate stocks and bonds and could significantly reshape financial markets. "It seems to be a real sticking point in all this, and it seems that maybe we're at an impasse," Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) said of tax policy regarding crypto staking and mining. Thompson previously voted to pass both the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act, signed in July last year, and the more wide-ranging Clarity Act, which would formally legalize most crypto activity in the United States.

The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), told reporters Tuesday he does not foresee members reaching a bipartisan deal on crypto tax policy until after the midterm elections, according to Punchbowl News. "I'm aligned with that goal—eventually," Neal said at Tuesday's hearing. Rep. John Larson (D-CT) added, "There is a sense of urgency, but there's also a sense of, 'are we acting too quick without knowing what we're doing?' There's far more questions than there seem to be answers." The partisan split comes as Republicans in both chambers are racing to move crypto bills while their party still controls Congress and the White House, with Democrats broadly favored to retake the House in November.

One measure under discussion would create a $10 de minimis tax exemption for crypto network transaction fees, also known as gas fees, covering up to 5,000 transactions a year, and would eliminate reporting requirements on stablecoin transactions by deeming the dollar-pegged crypto tokens as effectively equivalent to dollars for tax purposes. Lawrence Zlatkin, Coinbase's vice president of tax, told the committee it should expand the de minimis framework. Bitcoin advocates earlier this year urged lawmakers to extend small transaction tax relief beyond stablecoins, warning that everyday crypto payments still carry reporting burdens under current rules. Another bill would establish a two-year safe harbor for some taxpayers who failed to report prior crypto gains, a measure Markus Levin, co-founder of decentralized data network LAC, described by saying, "Staking and mining rewards have sat in an awkward grey area for years, and the absence of clear rules has made compliance a guessing game for anyone actively participating in these networks."

The heads of three industry trade groups—the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, and the Digital Chamber—sent a letter this week to the top-ranking Republicans and Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee urging quick passage of the mining and staking bill, dubbed the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act. "Reopening the compromise already struck in this legislation would risk reviving the very problems the bill resolves and stalling a bipartisan result that is finally within reach," the groups wrote. A representative for the Digital Chamber told Decrypt the organization plans to bring nearly a dozen member companies to the Hill on Wednesday to press for the bill's passage and said the flyout should provide "a good feel for the level of motivation." During a Ways and Means hearing last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers that "properly calibrated regulation is essential for economic growth, capital formation, employment, and higher wages," a line that did not address digital assets directly but set the stage for Tuesday's debate over staking, mining, network fees, and other digital asset tax questions.