The House Ways and Means Committee voted 38-5 to advance H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, pushing what could become the most sweeping overhaul of US crypto tax rules closer to a floor vote. Introduced by Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) on September 14, the bill cleared committee in just two days. The vote sends the measure toward the full House, and it would still need Senate passage and the president's signature before any of its provisions could take effect.

What the Bill Would Do

The heart of the legislation is a fix for one of crypto's longest-standing tax irritants: network and transaction fees, the payments users make to have their transactions processed and confirmed on a blockchain. Under current rules, every such fee technically triggers a taxable event, even when it amounts to only a few cents. That treatment traces back to IRS guidance issued in 2014, which classifies digital assets as property, making each disposition — however small — a reportable event.

H.R. 10357 introduces a de minimis exemption, allowing users to skip recognizing any gain or loss on digital asset dispositions used to pay network or transaction fees of $10 or less. The relief comes with a guardrail: it applies only if the user has not exceeded 5,000 such transfers in the prior year, keeping the benefit aimed at lower-volume users.

The bill reaches well beyond gas fees. It addresses stablecoin basis calculations, an area where tax preparers have been improvising for years, and introduces simplified annual accounting for widely traded digital assets, with those provisions set to take effect in 2028. It also creates new rules for digital asset lending, mining, and staking.

Most notably, the legislation expands wash-sale rules to cover most traded digital assets. Such rules prevent investors from selling an asset at a loss and immediately repurchasing it to claim a tax deduction. Stocks and bonds have operated under this regime for decades, but crypto has been exempt.

The Revenue Math

The Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan scorekeeping body Congress relies on for tax bill estimates, projects that H.R. 10357 will generate a net revenue increase of roughly $500 million over fiscal years 2027 to 2036. That projection is modest next to the scale of the US digital assets market, which currently exceeds $2 trillion in value and counts tens of millions of holders.

Eight representatives cosponsored the bill, including Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), lending it cross-party credibility. A 38-5 committee vote is the kind of margin that makes floor passage look increasingly likely.

Why It Matters for the Broader Market

The simplified annual accounting provisions, scheduled for 2028, are among the most consequential. Rather than tracking the cost basis of every individual token lot across dozens of wallets and exchanges, investors in widely traded digital assets would be able to use streamlined methods.

The wash-sale expansion cuts the other way for active traders. Crypto's exemption from wash-sale rules has been one of the few genuine tax advantages the asset class offered over traditional securities. Losing that edge will force traders to rethink the tax-loss harvesting strategies that have standard practice in crypto portfolio management.

The staking and mining provisions could also reshape how participants in proof-of-stake and proof-of-work networks approach their operations. The current lack of clear guidance has produced widely varying interpretations of when staking rewards become taxable income — whether at receipt or at sale — and how mining expenses should be categorized.

Should the bill reach the president's desk in something close to its current form, it would represent the most significant legislative action on crypto taxation since the infrastructure bill's broker reporting requirements in 2021.