House Tax Committee Pushes Crypto's $10 Paperwork Bailout Past Committee, One Day After Clarity Crash 🧾

The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee voted 38-5 on Wednesday to advance the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, a 114-page package that would establish the first comprehensive federal tax framework for digital assets. Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) introduced the legislation and framed the markup as a bipartisan milestone, stating, "This is a historic moment for this Committee: after more than a year of working together, Republican and Democrat Members have come together to establish the first-ever tax framework for digital assets." The markup had been noticed Monday alongside six other bills and was scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern on September 16.

The bill creates a "de minimis" exemption, allowing taxpayers to disregard gains or losses on qualifying network or transaction fees of $10 or less that are paid with digital assets. Because the IRS treats crypto as property, paying such a fee can itself create a taxable event. The relief would begin in 2028 and apply to eligible fee payments, not to small crypto purchases more generally. The legislation also provides simplified accounting for widely traded digital assets, sets special tax treatment for qualifying U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins purchased near their redemption value, extends wash-sale and constructive-sale rules to digital assets, and exempts qualifying crypto loans from being treated as taxable sales. It would also establish a Treasury voluntary disclosure program allowing eligible taxpayers to amend past returns and pay outstanding taxes, interest, and penalties.

On mining and staking, the bill classifies validator income as ordinary income, determines whether it is sourced inside or outside the United States, and permits qualifying investment trusts to stake digital assets without losing their trust status. A separate provision from Rep. Mike Carey's Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, H.R. 9175, has been dropped from the package. That provision would have let taxpayers choose between recognizing newly minted mining and staking tokens as income when received or treating them like self-created property taxed on sale. Without it, mining and staking rewards remain taxable when received or brought under the recipient's control.

The committee action came less than 24 hours after the Senate failed to advance the separate CLARITY Act, which addresses how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission would divide oversight of the U.S. crypto market. Eight banking trade groups had written to Senate leaders John Thune and Chuck Schumer urging tighter restrictions on stablecoin rewards in that bill. The SEC and CFTC have since pledged to pursue crypto rules under their existing authorities.

Smith added that the tax package was "the product of that work, bringing clarity, parity, and workability to digital asset taxation and helping keep the United States the crypto capital of the world, instead of pushing that innovation, and the jobs that come with it, offshore." The proposal still requires approval from both chambers of Congress in identical form and the president's signature before becoming law. With roughly five weeks of congressional work scheduled between the November elections and the start of the next session in January, the bill's path to enactment depends on drawing further attention before the session closes.