Crypto Tax Bill Clears House Committee After Clarity Act Setback

The House Ways and Means Committee voted to send the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R. 10357) to the full House, marking a key advance for a proposal to revise federal tax treatment of digital assets. Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) described the bill as the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiations intended to bring clarity and parity to crypto taxation.

Under the measure, qualifying network or transaction fees of $10 or less would be exempt from gain-or-loss calculations that now apply when fees are paid in tokens, reflecting the treatment of digital assets as property. That relief would not apply to small crypto purchases generally and is slated to begin in 2028. The bill also aims to simplify tax calculations for dollar stablecoins traded near redemption value.

The proposal would classify mining and staking rewards as ordinary income and permit certain investment trusts to stake assets without automatically losing their tax-preferred status solely for that activity. It omits a previously considered provision that would have allowed taxpayers to defer recognition of some mining and staking rewards.

Additionally, the bill would extend wash-sale rules to traded digital assets, generally disallowing loss deductions when substantially identical assets are reacquired within 30 days before or after a sale. It clarifies that qualifying crypto loans are not treated as sales and would create a disclosure program enabling eligible taxpayers to correct prior returns, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The tax bill’s committee advancement follows a Senate setback for the separate Clarity Act, which addressed crypto market oversight; after the Senate failed to move that measure, regulators including the SEC and CFTC said they would pursue rulemaking under existing authority. H.R. 10357 must still pass both chambers in identical form and be signed by the president to become law.