Bitcoin advocates and a bipartisan bloc of 18 House lawmakers are pressing U.S. tax authorities to recalibrate how stablecoins and staking rewards are taxed, arguing the current approach makes everyday crypto use operationally inefficient. Their core message is that routine on-chain payments are being treated like investment disposals, which is misaligned with how people actually use these assets.
Under today’s property-based framework, each on-chain spend can trigger a taxable disposition, forcing users and intermediaries into granular cost-basis tracking and gain/loss calculations. They argue the compliance burden is disproportionate for low-value activity and creates enough friction to deter mainstream payment adoption.
Congress is considering limiting a de minimis exemption to only stablecoins, leaving out Bitcoin entirely.
Our letter published today explains why that would be a serious mistake. https://t.co/wyIO0zPv4p
— Conner Brown (@BitcoinConner) January 13, 2026
Proposed de minimis relief for payments
One centerpiece proposal is to expand de minimis treatment so that low-value transactions do not require capital-gains accounting on every payment. The suggested model includes a $600 per-transaction cap and a $20,000 annual aggregate limit per taxpayer to reduce reporting noise while preserving auditability.
A parallel recommendation is to treat GENIUS Act–compliant payment stablecoins as cash-like for small purchases, removing the need for basis tracking on those payments. The thrust is to make compliant payment stablecoins behave like functional cash for low-dollar commerce without forcing gain/loss recognition.
They also emphasize that any simplification limited to stablecoins will be incomplete if it ignores network tokens used for gas. They note that gas tokens create recurring micro-dispositions that can negate the intended compliance simplification if left unaddressed.
Staking rewards and broker reporting pressure
On staking, advocates want taxation to occur at disposition rather than at receipt, particularly where rewards may be illiquid at the time they are earned. They frame this as a practical fix to avoid “double taxation” dynamics and reduce timing mismatches for taxpayers.
The push comes alongside an expanded broker reporting environment, increasing the urgency for workable rules that don’t overload reporting pipelines. They point to Form 1099-DA reporting for digital-asset sales becoming effective January 1, 2025 as a catalyst for near-term tax-policy modernization.
From an operational standpoint, trading desks and custodians see potential upside if these concepts become policy, mainly through reduced reconciliation complexity and lower compliance overhead for high-frequency, low-value activity. For retail users, the key benefit would be fewer cost-basis obligations tied to routine payments and small on-chain interactions.
Attention now turns to IRS guidance and how the rules will be applied heading into the 2026 filing cycle. The decisive variable is whether de minimis relief is broad enough to cover both payment stablecoins and the network-token mechanics that power transactions.
