US House crypto tax bill excludes deferred taxation on mining and staking rewards

BlockBeats news, September 15 — The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee will review a 114-page crypto tax bill on September 16, but the final version does not include provisions previously proposed to allow miners and stakers to defer income tax on rewards.

The bill is the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R. 10357). An earlier Mining and Staking Tax Clarity Act introduced by Representative Mike Carey had proposed that taxpayers could elect to recognize income when tokens are received, or treat them as self-created property and pay tax when the tokens are sold. The removal of that arrangement in this version means mining and staking rewards must still be taxed when received or when control is obtained, even if the related tokens have not yet been sold and converted to cash.

The new bill still includes multiple crypto tax adjustments, including classifying blockchain validator income as ordinary income, allowing qualifying investment trusts to stake digital assets, exempting crypto network and transaction fees of no more than $10 from gain and loss recognition, and providing special tax treatment for qualifying U.S. dollar stablecoins and digital asset lending. In addition, the bill also proposes extending wash sale rules to crypto assets and establishing a voluntary disclosure mechanism.

Previously, industry organizations such as the Blockchain Association and the Crypto Council for Innovation had called on Congress to pass Carey's mining and staking tax bill, arguing that taxing before tokens are sold could create liquidity pressure for miners and stakers.