Senate Finance Committee makes bipartisan progress on crypto tax reform

The Senate Finance Committee is actively working on bipartisan updates to how digital assets are taxed in the US. The catch: senators are holding their fire until the House reaches its own agreement first.

What the House is doing while the Senate waits

The House Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on June 9 featuring eight separate measures aimed at simplifying digital asset taxation.

Among the proposals discussed were H.R. 9178, titled the “Less Tax Paperwork for Digital Asset Owners Act,” and H.R. 9175, the “Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act.”

H.R. 9178 targets reporting burdens that crypto holders currently face. H.R. 9175 goes after the murky tax treatment of staking and mining rewards, addressing ambiguity about when those rewards become taxable income, and whether they should be taxed at receipt or at sale.

The bipartisan backstory

The groundwork traces back to July 2023, when Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, and Ranking Member Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, jointly solicited stakeholder input on digital asset tax policies.

A Joint Committee on Taxation report came next, laying out the technical landscape. Then, in October 2025, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing that zeroed in on specific pain points. Staking rewards taxation and transaction reporting requirements were highlighted as particularly problematic areas. Current tax rules were criticized for creating compliance burdens so heavy that they actively discourage investment.

There’s also the Miller-Horsford PARITY Act draft, updated in March 2026, which tackles adjacent issues like de minimis transactions and wash sales. De minimis rules would let small transactions go unreported below a certain threshold. Wash sale provisions would bring crypto in line with how stocks are treated when investors sell at a loss and immediately repurchase.

What this means for investors

Clearer treatment of staking and mining rewards could unlock significant capital. Some investors avoid staking entirely because they’re unsure whether the IRS will classify their rewards as income at the moment of receipt, potentially creating a tax bill before they’ve sold anything.

Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged that unclear US tax rules put American investors and companies at a disadvantage relative to jurisdictions with more defined frameworks.

The tax gap—the difference between what taxpayers owe and what they actually pay—is another motivator for lawmakers on both sides, as the existing framework is too confusing to enforce consistently.

For traders and holders, the practical move right now is to watch the House Ways and Means Committee for markup schedules on those eight bills. Once the House signals a unified approach, the Senate Finance Committee has indicated it’s ready to act.