The House Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on digital asset taxation June 9 at 2:00 PM ET, putting the tax treatment of crypto on the same policy track as market structure and payment stablecoins. The session comes a year after the GENIUS Act created a federal stablecoin framework, and as the CLARITY Act moves through the broader market-structure debate.
Witnesses bring industry and policy perspectives
The committee heard from four witnesses: Sarah Reilly of Fidelity Investments, Lawrence Zlatkin from Coinbase, Jason Somensatto of Coin Center, and Mike Kaercher from the Tax Law Center at NYU Law. Each offered views on how the IRS should handle digital assets, which it currently treats as property—meaning every transaction can trigger a taxable event requiring basis, fair market value, and gain or loss tracking.
The Joint Committee on Taxation's 2025 report made clear no digital asset is treated as currency for federal income tax purposes, and there's no general de minimis rule for small personal transactions. That's a pain point the hearing aimed to address.
The stablecoin tax carveout in play
A key proposal discussed was the Digital Asset PARITY Act, which would treat qualifying stablecoin spending like cash for tax purposes when certain conditions are met. That's a big deal for everyday commerce: if you buy a coffee with a regulated stablecoin, you wouldn't have to report a gain or loss. The PARITY Act would also extend wash-sale rules to digital assets while shielding certain regulated payment stablecoins from routine gain-or-loss recognition.
But the relief is narrow. Bitcoin-style payments and other non-stablecoin transfers would still require basis tracking. In practice, that means consumers might get a break using digital dollars but not for spending more volatile assets.
Other PARITY Act provisions and the June 23 comment deadline
The PARITY Act one-pager covers a lot of ground: source-of-income rules for cross-border transactions, lending treatment, wash-sale and constructive-sale rules, mark-to-market elections for dealers, mining and staking reward timing, charitable contributions, and a Treasury study on small transaction relief. The committee set a June 23 deadline for written comments on digital asset taxation, so stakeholders have two weeks to submit feedback.
The timing isn't accidental. With the GENIUS Act already law and the CLARITY Act in play, tax rules are the missing piece for a coherent federal crypto policy. The hearing puts lawmakers on a path to potentially move the PARITY Act this year—but the details, especially around which stablecoins qualify and how basis tracking works for everything else, remain unresolved.
