Crypto Fees Under $10 Would Be Tax-Free Unless You Made…

A sweeping U.S. crypto tax bill would stop investors from recognizing taxable gains or losses when they use digital assets to pay network or transaction fees of $10 or less, but the exemption disappears for taxpayers who made more than 5,000 digital-asset transfers in the previous year.The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up the 114-page Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 16. That puts the congressional debate on the same day as the Federal Reserve's policy decision, scheduled for 2:00 p.m. ET.The legislation was introduced September 14 by Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, with Reps. Jodey Arrington, Aaron Bean, Mike Carey, Steven Horsford, Mike Kelly, David Kustoff, Max Miller and Rudy Yakym joining him. CoinDesk said the package follows earlier digital-asset tax work by Horsford and Miller.The bill reaches well beyond the small-fee exemption. It covers accounting for crypto gains and losses, stablecoins, lending, wash sales, tokenized assets, mining and staking, broker reporting and a voluntary disclosure program for taxpayers seeking to correct earlier digital-asset tax problems.

Crypto Fees of $10 or Less Get a De Minimis Exemption

For ordinary crypto users, the most immediate provision is the proposed de minimis exception.Under current tax treatment, using cryptocurrency to pay a blockchain fee can itself amount to a disposition of the asset, potentially creating a reportable gain or loss even when the fee is only a few dollars.H.R. 10357 would provide that no gain or loss is recognized when a digital asset is disposed of to pay a qualifying network fee or transaction fee that does not exceed $10. The definition covers network validation costs as well as brokerage, trading, liquidity and similar fees that facilitate a digital-asset transfer.There is a significant activity limit. The exception would generally not apply to a person who engaged in more than 5,000 digital-asset transfers during the preceding taxable year. Traders, brokers, dealers and businesses that facilitate transaction validation are also excluded, subject to possible Treasury guidance.The $10 fee provision would apply to dispositions after December 31, 2027 if the legislation becomes law in its current form.

Crypto Traders Would Lose the Wash-Sale Advantage

The bill gives ordinary holders a reporting break on small fees while taking away a tax advantage that cryptocurrency traders have had over investors in traditional securities.H.R. 10357 would extend federal wash-sale rules to traded digital assets. Those rules generally prevent an investor from immediately claiming a tax loss when an asset is sold at a loss and a substantially identical asset is repurchased within the statutory wash-sale window.Because cryptocurrency has historically fallen outside the rule applied to stocks and securities, a trader could sell crypto to crystallize a tax loss and quickly buy the asset back while maintaining market exposure. The proposed legislation would close that gap.Qualified U.S.-dollar stablecoins are excluded from the bill's definition of assets subject to the expanded wash-sale rule. The legislation also addresses tokenized assets, including circumstances in which a tokenized or wrapped asset is treated as substantially identical to the stock, security or digital asset to which it is economically equivalent.A chairman's substitute posted ahead of Wednesday's markup does not change the $10 threshold or 5,000-transfer test. The Joint Committee on Taxation said the amendment mainly replaces references to the bill's introduction date with the specific date September 14, 2026.

The New JCT Score Changes the Revenue Picture

Earlier reporting cited different revenue estimates for the stand-alone bills that fed into the final package.Bitcoin.com reported that an earlier anti-abuse proposal, H.R. 9172, had been estimated to raise $2.074 billion over fiscal 2026 through 2036, while a companion mining and staking deferral proposal, H.R. 9175, carried an estimated cost of $2.956 billion over the same period.Those figures should not be treated as the score for H.R. 10357 itself. The Ways and Means Committee has since published the Joint Committee on Taxation's primary estimate for the consolidated bill.JCT now estimates that the de minimis fee exemption would reduce federal revenue by $2.365 billion over fiscal 2027 through 2036, while extending wash-sale rules to traded digital assets would raise $1.707 billion. Separate dealer and trader provisions are estimated to raise $2.332 billion.The mining and staking provisions contained in the current bill are also different from the earlier broad deferral proposal. JCT estimates the mining and staking section in H.R. 10357 would raise about $101 million over the 2027-2036 period.Across the entire package, including non-crypto provisions contained in the legislation, JCT estimates a net federal revenue gain of about $500 million over the decade.

The Bill Still Faces a Difficult 2026 Calendar

Wednesday's markup is an important procedural step, but it does not mean the crypto tax changes are close to becoming law.CoinDesk said the bill is unlikely to become law this year because the House is scheduled to break after this week and remain away until after the November election. Even if Ways and Means approves H.R. 10357 on Wednesday, the measure would still need sufficient floor time and support in both chambers.That makes the September 16 session more useful as a test of which crypto tax provisions can attract congressional support than as a sign that taxpayers should expect the new rules immediately.The federal proposal is also separate from the state-level tax fights already emerging around digital assets. FinanceFeeds recently covered the challenge to Illinois' new 0.2% digital-asset transaction tax, which is due to take effect in January 2027. H.R. 10357 instead rewrites parts of the federal tax code governing how Americans account for their own crypto activity.For individual holders, the trade-off is unusually clear: fewer tax events for small blockchain fees, but fewer opportunities to harvest crypto losses without triggering the same wash-sale restrictions that already apply to stock investors.