House Committee Weighs Two Crypto Tax Bills Sept 16: Mining Deferral and Wash-Sale Rules on the Table

The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is reportedly set to review two crypto tax bills this Wednesday, Sept. 16, a markup that could begin moving the first substantive digital-asset tax legislation through Congress this session. But as of Monday morning, the committee’s official calendar had not posted a markup notice, leaving the meeting time and final bill list unconfirmed in public records. The two measures at the center of the reported markup, H.R. 9175 and H.R. 9172, were introduced on June 8 by Reps. Mike Carey of Ohio and Jodey Arrington of Texas, and referred to the committee the same day. The Congressional Record confirms both referrals. One day later, on June 9, the committee held a legislative hearing covering those proposals alongside several other digital-asset tax measures, with witnesses including representatives from Fidelity, Coinbase and Coin Center, as well as an official from the NYU Tax Law Center. H.R. 9175: Deferring Tax on Mining and Staking Rewards The first bill, branded the Mining and Staking Tax Clarity Act, addresses one of the most persistent complaints from United States validators and miners: the requirement to recognize ordinary income at the moment new tokens are created, at the token’s fair market value on that date, regardless of whether the recipient ever sells. H.R. 9175 would create an optional election allowing qualifying miners and stakers to defer income recognition until the tokens are disposed of. At disposal, the amount would be treated as ordinary income. The practical effect would be to align the tax event with a liquidity event, eliminating scenarios where validators owe cash taxes on tokens they continue to hold through drawdowns. The deferral provision is also reportedly the most politically fragile element of the package. Unconfirmed reports circulating Monday suggested that committee Republicans may consider removing the mining deferral entirely or limiting it to five years. Neither change has been confirmed through a published committee amendment or substitute text, and the bill’s introduced form contains no such sunset. H.R. 9172: Wash-Sale Rules for Digital Assets The second bill, H.R. 9172, would extend existing wash-sale and constructive-sale restrictions to covered digital assets and related contracts. Under current law, the wash-sale rule, which bars investors from claiming a loss on a sale while repurchasing the same or substantially identical asset within 30 days, applies to securities and currency but not explicitly to digital assets, creating a widely used tax-loss-harvesting channel. The introduced bill includes targeted exceptions for qualified dollar stablecoins and certain validation-related acquisitions, a carve-out designed to avoid penalizing routine operational activity by stakers and miners who naturally replenish token positions as part of running infrastructure. Closing the wash-sale gap has long been expected to be part of any comprehensive digital-asset tax framework, and its pairing with the mining deferral in a single markup reflects the committee’s attempt to package taxpayer relief and anti-abuse measures together. Chairman Smith’s Framing Committee Chairman Jason Smith has presented the package as an attempt to give taxpayers clearer rules for digital assets. His statement at the June hearing argued that the existing tax framework had not kept pace with new financial technology, leaving both individuals and businesses to navigate guidance written for a pre-blockchain era. Such comments represent the committee majority’s policy position, and Wednesday’s reported markup would be the first opportunity to see whether that position translates into committee votes and amended text. What Is and Is Not Confirmed The uncertainty around the markup is itself notable. Without an official notice on the committee’s full calendar, the publicly available record does not confirm which measures will receive votes or what amendments members may offer. The absence of a posted notice does not prove the meeting will not occur; committee schedules frequently solidify in the final 24 to 48 hours before a markup. But it does mean investors and industry participants are operating on reports rather than official records as of Monday. The Broader Legislative Context The reported markup arrives in a crowded week for digital-asset policy in Washington. The Federal Reserve’s rate decision lands in the same Sept. 15-16 window, and separate House activity on crypto tax policy has been building through the fall. Bitcoin was changing hands near 77,288 USD on Monday, essentially flat over the past 24 hours at minus 0.08 percent, while Ethereum traded near 2,504 USD and Solana near 100.80 USD, a subdued tape that suggests markets are reserving judgment for the week’s macro events rather than the tax markup itself. For miners and stakers, the stakes of H.R. 9175 are direct and financial. Industry groups have argued for years that income-at-creation taxation disadvantages United States validators relative to counterparts in jurisdictions with more favorable regimes, and that the rule discourages participation in network security at a time when staking has become a mainstream institutional product offered by the same custodians that testified at the June hearing. For traders and market makers, H.R. 9172 would meaningfully change year-end behavior. If wash-sale restrictions extend to digital assets, the common practice of selling positions at a loss and immediately re-entering to preserve the tax benefit while maintaining market exposure would end, though the stablecoin and validation carve-outs would leave meaningful pockets of flexibility. What to Watch Wednesday If the markup proceeds, the key watch items are threefold: whether the mining and staking deferral survives in H.R. 9175, and in what form; whether any sunset or limitation is attached to it; and whether the committee advances either bill on a party-line or bipartisan vote, which would signal its prospects beyond committee. Both measures would still need full House passage and Senate action before reaching the President, so Wednesday’s session, even if confirmed, is a first step rather than a finish line. Either way, the fact that digital-asset tax bills have reached the markup stage at all marks progress from the hearing stage of June. The question for the industry is no longer whether Congress will engage with crypto tax policy, but which version of it survives the committee process.