House Advances Crypto Tax Bill With Wash-Sale Rule and $10 Gas-Fee Exemption

WASHINGTON — The House Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R. 10357) on Wednesday, sending the measure to the full House floor. The bill would extend the wash-sale rule to digital assets and establish new treatment for transaction fees, stablecoins, lending arrangements, mining, and staking.

The committee’s action came one day after procedural efforts stalled in the Senate on the Clarity Act, a separate market structure bill designed to define regulatory boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The House previously passed the broader Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), while market structure legislation remains caught in bicameral debate.

Under H.R. 10357, qualifying network or transaction fees, commonly called “gas fees,” of $10 or less would not trigger capital gains or losses. The de minimis exemption is scheduled to take effect in 2028 and would apply only to eligible fee payments, not general consumer purchases.

Current IRS treatment dates to Notice 2014-21, which classifies digital assets as property. As a result, taxpayers generally must calculate and report capital gains or losses for every transaction or fee paid in crypto, using the asset’s cost basis. The bill also seeks to simplify accounting for dollar-backed stablecoins traded close to their redemption value, reducing reporting friction for transactions near the peg.

A separate provision would change how digital asset lending is handled. Qualifying lending arrangements would no longer be treated as taxable property dispositions, eliminating tax liabilities when collateralized crypto is transferred through standard loan agreements. The legislation would also create a voluntary disclosure program coordinated through the Joint Committee on Taxation, allowing eligible taxpayers to amend past returns and correct earlier reporting omissions.

Section 1091 of the Internal Revenue Code would formally apply to digital assets under the bill. Because the IRS has historically treated cryptocurrencies as property rather than securities or stock, crypto investors have been able to use tax-loss harvesting strategies unavailable to traditional equity investors. They can currently sell tokens at a loss, offset capital gains, and immediately repurchase the identical asset without observing the statutory 30-day waiting period required for stocks and bonds.

H.R. 10357 would disallow a loss deduction when an investor acquires substantially identical digital assets within 30 days before or after a sale. The legislation therefore places digital asset transactions under the wash-sale rule while separately providing relief for some small network fees.

For proof-of-work mining and proof-of-stake validation, rewards from network participation would be reported as ordinary income upon receipt. That treatment aligns with IRS Revenue Ruling 2023-14, which says staking rewards must be included in gross income during the tax year when an investor gains dominion and control over the tokens.

The final committee draft removed an earlier proposal that would have deferred tax recognition for miners and stakers until earned tokens were sold or otherwise disposed of. It does, however, allow institutional investment trusts—including spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and grantor trusts—to stake held assets for yield without losing their tax-pass-through status solely because of staking activity.

“This wasn’t built overnight,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said after Wednesday’s markup vote. The committee had announced the formal review session on Monday, and Smith said the legislation followed more than a year of bipartisan negotiations to update federal tax architecture for modern financial technologies.

“The legislation before us today is 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,” Smith said. He added that he looked forward to “building on that work as we move these policies forward.”

The SEC and CFTC have indicated that they will continue digital asset enforcement and rulemaking under their existing statutory authorities. H.R. 10357 must still pass the full House of Representatives, receive Senate approval in identical form, and be signed into law by the president.