A new 114-page crypto tax package being considered by the US House Ways and Means Committee does not include a proposal to let miners and stakers defer taxes on crypto rewards until they sell the tokens.
The package, published alongside the committee’s markup notice on Monday, includes several crypto tax measures but leaves out the reward-timing provision from Representative Mike Carey’s Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act.
The omission means mining and staking rewards could continue to be taxable when received or when they come under the taxpayer’s control, even if the tokens have not yet been sold for cash.
The provision was part of Carey’s bill, introduced in June. It would have given taxpayers a choice. They could either report newly created tokens as income when they received them or treat them more like self-created property and pay tax when the tokens were eventually sold.
The issue is particularly important for miners and stakers because receiving crypto does not necessarily mean receiving cash. A taxpayer could face a tax bill on tokens whose market value later falls or which have not yet been sold.
The House package, known as the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, does retain several provisions covering mining and staking. Income earned from blockchain validator activities would be treated as ordinary income, while the bill would also clarify whether such income is sourced inside or outside the United States.
Source: waysandmeans.house.gov
Another provision would allow qualifying investment trusts to stake digital assets without losing their trust status. The package also proposes a tax exemption for gains or losses when crypto is used to pay network or transaction fees of up to $10.
Stablecoins and crypto lending are also covered. Qualifying US-dollar stablecoins would receive special tax treatment, while certain digital-asset loans could take place without being treated as taxable sales.
The package further proposes simplified accounting rules for widely traded crypto assets and would extend wash-sale and constructive-sale rules to cryptocurrencies. It also includes a voluntary disclosure programme for taxpayers who want to correct earlier digital-asset tax violations.
The omission of reward deferral has drawn criticism from industry groups. The Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation and Digital Chamber had urged Congress to pass Carey’s legislation as introduced. They argued that taxing rewards before miners and stakers can sell them can create liquidity problems.
The Ways and Means package comes as lawmakers continue debating broader rules for the digital-asset industry. For miners and stakers, however, the immediate tax question remains unchanged: receiving crypto rewards can still create a tax liability before those rewards are converted into cash.
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