Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
One in ten Hill aides expects a crypto tax bill to clear Congress this year
Ten percent of Hill aides polled by Punchbowl News expect a digital-asset tax bill to pass before Dec. 31, 2026. Crypto firms and investors face year-end and 2027 under current rules while the House bill's $10 fee exemption and wash-sale extension wait on a crowded lame-duck Senate.
The Investor · Invest desk
Drafted by a language model from the sources cited here and checked against its claim ledger before publication. How we use AISend a correction
What happened
- Sen. Steve Daines of Montana introduced a related Senate draft in late September or early October covering stablecoin payments and wash-sale extensions.
- Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican and one of the sector's most prominent backers in Congress, also voiced doubt that a tax bill moves this year.
- The Clarity Act, a separate crypto market-structure bill, recently collapsed in the Senate.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost Routine small crypto payments bear the delay most directly, because the $10 fee carve-out written for them stays out of the tax code for at least the rest of 2026.
- decision Firms budgeting 2027 payments and accounting work should assume no fee exemption, since a bill that misses this session would likely need its committee vote revisited by new lawmakers.
- constraint The Clarity Act's Senate collapse matters for the tax bill because both depend on the same scarce Senate floor time and political will, per Crypto Briefing.
Thirty-eight of the 43 Ways and Means members who voted backed H.R. 10357, or 88% [2], while 90% of the aides in Punchbowl's Canvass poll do not expect a digital-asset tax bill to pass this year [1]. Both figures can be right, because one counts votes in a House committee and the other is a forecast about a lame-duck Congress that has to clear must-pass items first. Punchbowl's reporting puts crypto tax low on that list, facing hurdles other tax measures do not [2].
The year can still end a few ways. A lame-duck vehicle could carry the tax language anyway. The Senate could work from the Daines draft [7], whose overlap with the House bill on stablecoins and wash-sale treatment Crypto Briefing describes as the possible basis of a future deal [10]. Or the session closes with nothing passed, and by Crypto Briefing's reading the 38-5 committee vote would likely need to be revisited once new lawmakers are seated [11]. I'd plan on the last outcome.
Next to the $10 fee carve-out [5], the bill carries wash-sale provisions [6]. Those would extend to digital assets the rule that stops an investor from selling at a loss and quickly buying back just to claim a deduction, closing a gap that has long separated crypto from stocks [12]. A stall leaves the carve-out unwritten and the gap open through Dec. 31, so year-end loss sales happen under the rules as they stand [12]. Crypto Briefing did not report effective dates for either provision.
The view fails if the Senate finds floor time before Dec. 31 for the stablecoin and wash-sale language the two texts share [10]. Punchbowl published the poll with 88 calendar days left in the year [3].
What to watch
- Any Senate committee action on the Daines draft before the session ends, the first sign the upper chamber is spending time on crypto tax this year.
- A House floor vote on H.R. 10357 during the lame duck, giving the Senate a passed text to work from.
- Whether the new Congress reintroduces the bill with the $10 de minimis and wash-sale provisions intact.