The House Ways and Means Committee is reportedly eyeing a Sept. 16 markup on two crypto tax bills, but the date was still unconfirmed as of Sept. 14.
- One bill tackles mining and staking income timing
- The other extends wash-sale and constructive-sale rules to digital assets
- No official markup notice had been posted
- Republican amendments could still change the final language
The House Ways and Means Committee was reportedly eyeing a Sept. 16 markup on two crypto tax bills, a sign that Congress may finally be treating digital-asset taxation like a real policy issue instead of a messy afterthought. But as of Sept. 14, the committee had not posted an official markup notice, so the schedule remained unconfirmed.
The two bills target very different problems. One would give miners and stakers a clearer option for when newly created tokens get taxed. The other would drag crypto into anti-abuse rules that already apply to stocks and securities, including wash-sale and constructive-sale rules. In plain English: one bill is about when income starts; the other is about when taxpayers can stop gaming the rules.
Representatives Mike Carey and Jodey Arrington introduced both measures on June 8. The next day, the House Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on digital-asset taxation, with witnesses from Fidelity, Coinbase, Coin Center and the NYU Tax Law Center. Chairman Jason Smith said the package was meant to give taxpayers clearer rules for digital assets and argued the current framework has not kept pace with new financial technology.
That part is hard to dispute. U.S. crypto tax rules have long sat somewhere between patchwork and shrug. Honest users get stuck with uncertainty, aggressive traders find loopholes, and scammers tend to thrive anywhere the rules are fuzzy enough to be “interpreted.” Funny how that works.
What H.R. 9175 would change
H.R. 9175, the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, focuses on newly created tokens received through mining, staking or another qualifying validation process. Under the bill’s introduced language, those tokens would generally be included in ordinary income at fair market value when they are acquired.
That is the default treatment. The bill would also let eligible taxpayers elect to defer recognizing that income until the tokens are sold or otherwise disposed of. In other words, receipt would normally trigger income, but the taxpayer could choose to push recognition down the road.
The election would continue in later years unless the taxpayer got Treasury approval to revoke it. Deferred gain would be recognized when the token is sold or otherwise disposed of.
This matters because the current setup can create a nasty liquidity problem. If you owe tax the moment tokens hit your wallet, you may be paying the IRS before you have actually cashed out. For small miners and stakers, that can mean a real cash-flow squeeze, especially in a market that can torch value faster than a bad meme coin collapses on a Sunday afternoon.
Supporters will likely argue that deferral better matches the economics of the activity and reduces the absurdity of taxing unrealized proceeds that have not been converted into spendable dollars. Critics will point out the obvious risk: once you create an election like this, smart people will use it smartly, and dishonest people will use it dishonestly.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that H.R. 9175 would reduce federal revenue by $2.956 billion between fiscal years 2026 and 2036. That figure does not prove the bill is bad policy. It does show that “clarity” often comes with a budget cost, at least over the scoring window Congress uses.
What H.R. 9172 would change
H.R. 9172, the Applying Existing Tax Anti-Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act, would expand the wash-sale rule in Section 1091 from “stock or securities” to “specified assets.” That new category would include most digital assets and certain contracts or options tied to them.
The wash-sale rule is simple in concept. If you sell an asset at a loss and then buy back a substantially identical one within 30 days before or after the sale, the loss deduction is disallowed. The point is to stop taxpayers from manufacturing a tax loss while keeping the same economic exposure.
Crypto has historically lived outside that explicit rule, which has made loss harvesting a favorite move in down markets. Sell the asset, book the loss, and jump back in fast enough to keep nearly the same position. H.R. 9172 is designed to shut that door.
The bill also extends the constructive-sale rules in Section 1259 to digital assets. Those rules can force recognition of gain when a taxpayer has effectively eliminated economic exposure without formally selling the asset. Put simply: if you have hedged so aggressively that you are basically out of the position, the tax code may treat it like a sale anyway.
There is one important carveout. Qualified U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins that meet the bill’s statutory requirements would be excluded. That reflects lawmakers’ view that some dollar-backed stablecoins deserve treatment different from volatile tokens, though the fine print will matter a lot if Treasury gets room to interpret the law.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that H.R. 9172 would raise $2.074 billion over fiscal years 2026 through 2036. So one bill scores as a revenue loser and the other as a revenue raiser. Washington loves to call that balance; the fight starts when lawmakers have to preserve it in actual legislative text.
Why the markup matters
A markup is the committee stage where lawmakers debate, amend and vote on legislation. If the committee approves either measure, it can move to the full House. That does not make it law. It just means the bill has survived one gate in a long process.
Even then, House leaders decide whether anything reaches the floor. Any House-passed bill would still need Senate approval, and the two chambers would have to reconcile differences before anything could go to the president.
As of Sept. 14, the committee had not published a chairman’s amendment, substitute text, meeting time or voting agenda. That leaves plenty of room for changes, especially on the mining-and-staking bill.
Reports suggested Republicans may try to remove the mining deferral or limit it to five years, but no official amendment confirming that had been published as of Sept. 14. That is the main thing to watch. In tax law, the introduced version is often just the opening move, not the final hand.
What this means for crypto users
If H.R. 9175 advances in something close to its current form, miners and stakers could get a more workable path for handling income timing. That would be a meaningful improvement over today’s murky treatment, especially for taxpayers trying to stay compliant without getting crushed by cash-flow mismatches.
If H.R. 9172 advances, traders could lose one of crypto’s longest-running tax quirks by omission. The practical effect would be to make digital assets look more like traditional financial instruments when it comes to loss harvesting and hedged positions. That is probably the goal. The snag is that tokens, wrapped assets and protocol-level rewards do not always map neatly onto stock-market assumptions.
That is the real tension here. One camp sees these bills as overdue modernization: clearer rules, fewer absurd outcomes, less room for games. The other camp worries that lawmakers are still trying to force old tax machinery onto a market that does not behave like the old one.
Both views have merit. Crypto absolutely needs clearer rules. But rules are only useful if they actually fit the thing being regulated. Copy-pasting legacy tax concepts onto new asset types without care is how you get fresh confusion dressed up as reform.
Key questions and takeaways
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Will the House actually hold the Sept. 16 markup?
It was reported as planned, but no official committee notice had been posted as of Sept. 14. Until the Ways and Means Committee publishes the agenda, the date remains unconfirmed. -
What does H.R. 9175 try to fix?
It gives qualifying miners and stakers an election to defer income recognition on newly created tokens until they are sold or otherwise disposed of. That could ease cash-flow pressure, but it also raises abuse concerns. -
What does H.R. 9172 target?
It would expand wash-sale and constructive-sale rules to most digital assets under a new “specified assets” category. The aim is to stop loss harvesting and other tax tricks that leave the economic position unchanged. -
Why do stablecoins get special treatment?
The bill excludes qualified U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins that meet its statutory requirements. Lawmakers appear to view some stablecoins as closer to payment tools than speculative assets, though the exact definition will matter a lot. -
Are these bills likely to become law quickly?
Not likely. Committee action would only be the first hurdle, and the House, Senate and White House would still have to clear the usual legislative maze.
For now, the real signal is direction. Congress is at least starting to treat digital assets as a serious tax-policy question, which is progress. The next question is whether lawmakers write something coherent, or just hand the industry another half-baked compromise wrapped in legalese.
Further reading
For more on the tax fight moving through Washington, these reports trace the broader push and pull around digital asset reporting rules.
