Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Ways and Means takes up a crypto wash-sale extension worth $23.5bn over a decade
The September 16 markup pairs that revenue estimate with H.R. 9175, a bill letting miners and stakers wait until they sell before recognising income on newly created tokens. Bloomberg reported the schedule.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a September 16 markup on a package of digital asset tax bills, moving them from discussion drafts into formal committee consideration and toward a floor vote.
- H.R. 9175, the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, would let miners and stakers defer recognising income on newly created tokens until those tokens are actually sold.
- H.R. 9172 would extend the wash-sale and constructive-sale rules that already apply to securities so that they cover actively traded digital assets.
- Past Treasury estimates projected that extending wash-sale rules to digital assets could raise roughly $23.5 billion over a decade.
- The markup follows a June 9, 2026 hearing on Republican-led drafts, with testimony from representatives of Coinbase, Fidelity, Coin Center and NYU Law's Tax Law Center.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost Active loss-harvesters fund the revenue side of this package; a holder who never realises a loss gives up nothing, so the burden concentrates in high-turnover accounts.
- capability A miner taxed only at sale can hold newly created tokens without owing dollars on a position that has produced no cash.
- decision Anyone whose position management assumes a quick rebuy after a realised loss has to decide whether that assumption survives a committee vote.
- precedent Because neither bill names a token, an asset that only becomes actively traded later would fall under the same rules without further legislation.
The two bills push cash in opposite directions. Divide the ten-year figure by ten and the wash-sale extension collects about $2.35 billion a year on average [9], money that comes out of the accounts of traders who sell Bitcoin or Ethereum at a loss, take the deduction, and buy the same asset back minutes later [7][8]. The deferral runs the other way, moving collections from miners and stakers into later years [3][18]. Cryptobriefing argues the $23.5 billion projection gives the package a fiscal argument that could help it survive budget-conscious scrutiny on both sides of the aisle [10].
For a miner the change is about when dollars are due. Under current interpretations, tokens that land in a wallet after validating a block can trigger income tax at that moment, even if the miner never sells [4]. H.R. 9175 would move the taxable event to disposition, where the income would be treated as ordinary income [5]. Cryptobriefing's account of the bill leaves open how basis or appreciation between receipt and sale would be handled [5].
The value of the deduction the other bill removes scales with realised losses, so it is worth most to accounts that trade often and least to accounts that sit still [7].
Cryptobriefing, citing prediction markets, reported that participants view the markup as a potentially positive regulatory shift for Bitcoin, and that those markets are tracking a path toward $200,000 by the end of 2026 [16][17]. The revenue half of the same package is a tax increase on the people doing the trading [6][9]. In my view what is being priced is the clarity, which is what Coinbase representatives pressed for at the June 9, 2026 hearing, where they stressed that clear tax rules would help the US hold its competitive edge in digital assets [13][11].
The markup comes 99 days after that hearing [12]. If the committee splits the package and advances H.R. 9175 without H.R. 9172, the deferral goes ahead with no raiser behind it and the fiscal pairing argument is wrong [1][8].
What to watch
- Whether the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes a score of H.R. 9172 that differs from Treasury's older $23.5 billion estimate.
- Whether Democrats' call for additional analysis turns into a procedural delay once the committee convenes.
- Whether the committee votes the two bills as a package or separately, and how quickly either reaches the House floor.