House Panel Unveils Crypto Tax Bill Ahead of Markup

Current Internal Revenue Service rules require mining and staking rewards to be recognized as income at market value when recipients gain control of them, even if the assets have not been sold, creating a mismatch between tax liabilities, cash flow and prices. Kraken said in April 2026 that nearly one-third of the 56 million tax forms submitted to the IRS in 2025 involved transactions worth less than $1, underscoring the crypto tax-reporting burden.

On June 21, 2026, the Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation and The Digital Chamber wrote to the House Ways and Means Committee, urging it to pass Mike Carey's bill without amendment. The measure would allow rewards to be taxed either when received or when sold. Steven Horsford has proposed limiting deferrals to five years, and the bill remains under consideration.

Under the current U.S. tax system, nearly every disposal of a digital asset is treated as a reportable event. Even paying network fees or using stablecoins can generate burdensome recordkeeping requirements, while the timing of income recognition for mining and staking rewards remains unclear. The House Ways and Means Committee has therefore advanced seven draft bills affecting more than 67 million U.S. crypto holders.

The committee held a hearing at 2 p.m. on June 9, 2026, to consider proposals including exemptions from gain-or-loss reporting for network fees of $10 or less, simplified reporting for stablecoins and annual gains and losses, and an option to defer taxes on mining and staking rewards until they are sold. Democratic lawmakers are concerned that the deferral could be abused, while bipartisan consensus and a formal legislative timetable remain uncertain.

The Internal Revenue Service currently treats cryptocurrency as property, meaning payments, trades and staking rewards may all trigger reporting requirements. The rules are fragmented, and even small payments require gains or losses to be calculated. Bipartisan lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee are therefore advancing the Digital Asset PARITY Act, which seeks to bring stablecoins, lending, mining and staking under a consistent tax framework.

Representatives Max Miller and Steven Horsford introduced the bill on May 19, 2026. Transactions involving compliant stablecoins worth less than $200 would be tax-exempt. Income from mining, staking and validation would generally be included in gross income at its fair market value when received, with taxpayers able to elect a deferral of up to five tax years. The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on June 9, but the bill remains under consideration.

Under the current US tax system, purchases made with digital assets such as Bitcoin are treated as disposals of property. Users may therefore have to calculate and report capital gains even when buying something as small as a cup of coffee. Senator Cynthia Lummis has called for a tax exemption threshold for small transactions to ease the tax and record-keeping burden of everyday payments and allow cryptocurrency to function more like the US dollar as a medium of exchange.

Lummis introduced S.2207 on June 30, 2025, and referred it to the US Senate Finance Committee. The bill would exempt transactions when both the transaction value and the gain are no more than $300, subject to an annual cap of $5,000, with inflation adjustments beginning in 2026. She renewed the push in March 2026, seeking to add the provision to the digital asset market structure bill under Senate consideration.