House Hearing to Weigh Crypto Tax Relief Beyond Stablecoins

The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on June 9 at 2:00 p.m. ET in 1100 Longworth on digital asset taxation and whether tax relief should extend beyond regulated dollar stablecoins. Witnesses include Sarah Reilly of Fidelity Investments, Lawrence Zlatkin of Coinbase, Jason Somensatto of Coin Center and Mike Kaercher of the Tax Law Center at NYU Law. The committee set June 23 as the deadline for written comments.

Under current IRS guidance, convertible virtual currency is treated as property for federal tax purposes. Spending or moving crypto can trigger gain or loss calculations, which requires taxpayers to track basis and fair market value when they buy goods, pay network fees, exchange tokens, or transfer assets between wallets they control.

The GENIUS Act, enacted as Public Law 119-27 in July 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law established issuer rules and reserve standards but did not resolve how users should be taxed when they spend stablecoins.

The Digital Asset PARITY Act package would treat qualifying regulated dollar stablecoin payments like cash for tax purposes, propose a five-year deferral election for mining and staking rewards, and direct the Treasury to study de minimis relief for small transactions. PARITY also addresses lending, wash-sale and constructive-sale rules, mark-to-market elections, and donor reporting for charitable digital-asset contributions.

Senator Cynthia Lummis has proposed a de minimis rule exempting small personal digital-asset transactions up to $300 per event with a $5,000 annual cap. The Joint Committee on Taxation’s 2025 report noted that no digital asset is treated as currency for federal income tax and that no general de minimis rule excludes gains on small personal transactions. The report also noted that gains on personal-use digital assets may be recognized while losses generally are not deductible outside certain business contexts.

IRS guidance for 2026 and later updates Form 1099-DA instructions. Digital asset brokers must report gross proceeds for sales and include basis reporting for covered securities. The instructions offer optional reporting methods for stablecoins and NFTs, add wash-sale information fields for tokenized securities, and treat rewards and staking payments through an exception rather than as standard reportable items.

Key issues for the committee include whether tax relief should be limited to regulated stablecoins or extended to small transactions in other tokens, how to treat network fees paid in crypto when those fees create tax records, and the timing of taxation for mining and staking rewards where taxpayers may owe tax before selling or receiving cash.

The hearing will gather perspectives from market participants, platforms, policy advocates and tax scholars. Written submissions due June 23 will be part of the record for lawmakers considering how tax rules should apply to everyday crypto payments and network activity.