US House Crypto Tax Bill Opts Out of Mining Reward Deferral

The US House Ways and Means Committee has released a comprehensive crypto tax package that does not include provisions for deferring taxation on mining and staking rewards. The Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, will be considered by the committee this Wednesday.

The absence of the reward-timing provision is notable as it would have allowed taxpayers to choose between recognizing newly created tokens as income when received or treating them similarly to self-created property and paying tax when sold.

Without this provision, mining and staking rewards will remain taxable when received or brought under the recipient's control, potentially before they are sold for cash. This could create liquidity problems for miners and stakers.

The package does retain some of its mining and staking provisions, however, including classifying income from blockchain validator activities as ordinary income and allowing qualifying investment trusts to stake digital assets without losing their trust status.