Seven bills under consideration by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee would touch nearly every aspect of digital asset taxation — from mining income to charitable donations to wash sales. For the 60 million Americans who own cryptocurrency, the status quo of muddled rules may finally be coming to an end
Key takeaways:
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The wash sale loophole is likely closing — For clients that have been harvesting crypto losses and immediately repurchasing the same asset should know that “wash sale” strategy may soon work exactly like it does for stocks — with a mandatory 30-day waiting period.
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Non-compliant holders have a potential off-ramp — A proposed voluntary disclosure program would let clients that haven’t properly reported digital asset income to get into compliance with reduced penalties — but it’s only available for a limited time.
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Staking and mining income treatment is changing — Proposed legislation would allow taxpayers to elect to defer recognizing newly minted digital assets as income, which could be a meaningful planning opportunity for active miners and stakers… or a trap, depending on their situation.
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Walk into any conversation with a cryptocurrency-owning client right now and you’re navigating the same awkward reality: The rules are genuinely unclear, have been unclear for years, and yet the IRS has increasingly expected compliance anyway. Now, however, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is trying to resolve that tension.
And crypto legislation is one piece of a much larger shift reshaping the tax profession and potentially impacting clients right now. The recent 2026 State of Tax Professionals Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute maps the challenges and opportunities defining the profession this year, including AI adoption, advisory pricing, talent constraints, and the growing gap between what clients want and what firms are charging for it.
Add to that list now, the changes coming for crypto asset owners and their tax, audit & accounting advisors.
New legislative changes for crypto owners
The package of crypto legislation — a collection of seven separate bills — currently under consideration by Ways and Means is serious enough that their tax advisors need to start thinking now about what it means for clients.
Some of these new proposals include:
The wash sale rule: A strategy that may be changing
Of all the provisions in the package, extending wash sale rules to digital assets will have the broadest practical impact. Currently, crypto investors can sell at a loss, immediately buy back the same position, and still claim the deduction — a strategy unavailable to stock investors. The proposed legislation would change that, applying to digital assets the same 30-day before-and-after window that governs stock transactions.
For clients with active portfolios, this isn’t just a planning consideration — it’s a recordkeeping one. Every transaction would need to be evaluated against a rolling 60-day window across potentially multiple wallets and exchanges. The change to this rule was hardly unexpected — the question was never really whether the wash sale rule would come to crypto, but when. Tax advisors should begin their honest conversation with clients by acknowledging that.
Mining and staking: A choice with consequences
For clients who mine or earn staking rewards with crypto, the proposed Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act gives crypto miners and stakers the ability to elect to defer income recognition, which would treat newly minted digital assets more like self-created property than an immediate taxable event.
In practice, the calculus is complicated. Deferring income means the cost-based question gets pushed forward, not eliminated. If the asset appreciates significantly before sale, a client who deferred income recognition could face a larger ordinary tax event later. If the asset depreciates, owners have lost the ability to recognize the loss in the year of receipt.
Making the right choice — with the advice of a tax professional — depends almost entirely on the client’s individual circumstances, such as their marginal tax rate, their expectations for the asset’s trajectory, and their liquidity needs. This is exactly the conversation that tax professionals need to be having with clients around this issue.
The voluntary disclosure program: A limited window
Perhaps the most immediately actionable provision for many tax advisors is the proposed one-time voluntary disclosure program, which gives taxpayers who haven’t properly reported crypto income the opportunity to get into compliance with reduced penalties and a clean slate.
The IRS has run these programs before, and the pattern is consistent — the best terms are early, enforcement pressure increases after the deadline, and clients that wait because they hope the problem will disappear tend to regret it.
Simplification and opportunity
Not everything in the package adds complexity. The Less Tax Paperwork for Digital Asset Owners Act would exclude gains or losses on network fees and regulated US dollar stablecoins by removing a reporting headache that has made crypto compliance so cumbersome for everyday users. And the Charitable Deductions for Digital Asset Donations Act would eliminate the qualified appraisal requirement for donated digital assets when market prices are readily available, lowering the friction on a strategy that has always made good tax sense for clients that holding appreciated crypto with charitable intent.
The tax advisors that will offer their clients the most value in a post-legislation world are the ones already holding these proactive conversations, and reviewing which clients have crypto exposure, identifying which may have unreported income, flagging which miners and stakers should be thinking about the deferral choice, and identifying charitable giving opportunities before the appraisal requirement disappears.
In addition, the voluntary disclosure program is the clearest example of how proactive advisory work can pay off. Clients that have quietly hoped their unreported crypto transactions would stay below the radar need someone to tell them plainly that a window for clean resolution is likely opening — and that waiting for it to close is not a strategy. That conversation is uncomfortable, of course, but it’s also exactly what a trusted advisor is for.
Beyond compliance, the considered package of crypto legislation creates the need to have genuine planning conversations that didn’t exist before. For example, the wash sale question is time-sensitive, and the staking deferral election requires modeling. None of this requires tax advisors to wait for final regulations; rather, it requires they know their clients well enough to know which ones have exposure, which have opportunity, and which needs a conversation they haven’t thought of requesting.
Right now — in the space between a Congressional hearing and a presidential signature — that is the most valuable thing a tax professional can offer.
You can download a copy of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 State of Tax Professionals Report here
