Key facts
- The US House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act with a 38-5 vote.
- The bill establishes a federal tax framework for digital assets, including provisions for stablecoins, mining, staking, and lending.
- A de minimis exemption for qualifying network and transaction fees of $10 or less is included in the bill.
- Wash-sale rules will be extended to widely traded digital assets.
- The Senate's CLARITY Act, a market structure bill, failed to advance after a cloture motion failed 49-50.
- SEC and CFTC chairs indicated their agencies will continue crypto regulation under existing authority.
The US House Ways and Means Committee has advanced a bipartisan bill, H.R. 10357, aimed at establishing a federal tax framework for digital assets, passing with a 38-5 vote. The legislation includes provisions for stablecoins, mining and staking income, digital asset lending, and a de minimis exemption for qualifying network and transaction fees of $10 or less, effective from 2028. It also extends wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets.
This development follows the failure of the Senate's CLARITY Act, a broader market structure bill, to advance. The cloture motion for the CLARITY Act failed 49-50, falling short of the 60 votes required. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a sponsor of the CLARITY Act, attributed its failure to Democrats moving the goalposts on proposed consumer protections and restrictions on politicians' crypto investments.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer expressed disappointment but stated the delay does not spell doom for the CLARITY Act, suggesting it will be revisited after the midterm elections. He emphasized the importance of the CLARITY Act in tandem with the GENIUS Act for stablecoins, likening the stablecoin law without the market structure guidance to "having a cell phone without cell towers."
Adding another hurdle, the House has cancelled sessions until after the November midterm elections. The SEC and CFTC chairs, Paul Atkins and Mike Selig respectively, indicated that their agencies would continue to pursue crypto regulation within their existing statutory authorities in the absence of new legislation.