Finance

Crypto Tax Week Is Here, and Miners Finally Get Their Day in Washington

By Omar aka Crypt0 · Sep 14, 2026

The House Ways and Means Committee just put crypto taxes on the calendar, and the two biggest unanswered questions in digital asset taxation are both on the agenda. The committee scheduled a September 16 markup on a package of digital asset tax bills, the step that moves legislation toward a full House floor vote. Two bills drive the markup. The Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, H.R. 9175, would let miners and stakers defer recognizing income on newly created tokens until they actually sell them. Under the current interpretation, a miner who validates a block can owe income tax the moment tokens land in the wallet, even before a single sale turns those tokens into spendable cash. The new bill shifts the taxable event to the point of disposition, when the income would be treated as ordinary income. The second bill, the Applying Existing Tax Anti Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act, H.R. 9172, extends wash sale and constructive sale rules to actively traded digital assets. Stock traders have lived with wash sale rules for generations. Crypto traders have harvested losses on Bitcoin or Ethereum and bought the same asset back minutes later, claiming the deduction while buying back in, for years.

Put the two together and you get the clearest picture yet of how Washington wants to tax crypto. Mining and staking get gentler timing, which treats block rewards like the productive income they are and taxes them when they convert to spendable money. Trading gets stricter bookkeeping, closing a gap that Treasury estimates could be worth roughly 23.5 billion dollars in federal revenue over a decade. That number is the legislation's engine. A tax bill that pays for itself has a far easier path through a budget conscious Congress than one that costs money. The package is also deliberately token agnostic, applying across the asset class instead of naming favorites, which keeps it flexible as the market evolves.

The markup follows a June 9 hearing where the committee heard from Coinbase, Fidelity, Coin Center, and NYU Law's Tax Law Center. The industry message was consistent: America needs clear digital asset tax rules, and it needs them soon, to keep its edge in the global digital asset race. Democrats on the committee have asked for more analysis before moving forward, and Wednesday's session will show whether those calls become procedural roadblocks or stay as rhetorical positioning. Meanwhile the SEC is moving on its own track: on August 18 it proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, the first registration exempt offering pathway designed specifically for crypto assets, with a 60 day public comment window. Rules from Congress plus rules from the SEC is how a real framework gets built.

What this means for holders is simple. If you mine or stake, Wednesday's markup could start the clock on tax timing that finally matches economic reality. If you trade actively, the wash sale era is likely ending, so this is the season to get your records in order and talk to a tax professional. Clarity is arriving. Plan like it.

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