A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to clarify the language of the infrastructure bill enacted by President Joe Biden around cryptocurrency tax reporting requirements.
In a Tuesday letter, Senators Rob Portman, Mike Crapo, Pat Toomey, Mark Warner, Kyrsten Sinema and Cynthia Lummis urged Yellen to "provide information or informal guidance" on the definition of "broker" in the recently passed infrastructure law, HR 3684. Under current wording, people in the crypto space, including miners, software developers, transaction validators, and Node operators, must report most transactions of digital assets worth more than $ 10,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS.
However, according to US lawmakers, the law contains an "overly broad interpretation" of what a broker is and places an undue burden on certain individuals who may not have the necessary information about the transactions to comply. All six said Yellen is empowered to use the Administrative Procedure Act, legislation that determines how federal agencies can develop and issue regulations. In this case, they urged her to provide a set of rules that clarify the definition of a corridor "expeditiously," or before the end of the year.
"We ask that you carefully consider the characteristics of the technologies that drive this space, which may include differences in the consensus mechanisms of various distributed ledgers and second layer protocols," the six senators said. "Digital assets could be shocking technology developments in certain sectors, and clear guidelines on tax filing requirements will be important to those in this ecosystem."
Related: US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to 'Fix' Infrastructure Act's Crypto Reporting Requirement
The letter is the latest effort by US lawmakers to try to modify the tax reporting provision in infrastructure legislation. Toomey, Lummis, Sinema, Portman, Warner and others endorsed a bipartisan agreement in an amendment to do just that when the bill was passing through the Senate in August, but the proposal was derailed by Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby looking to add your own amendment to the invoice. Senators Ron Wyden and Lummis also tried to pass legislation that would have changed the tax filing requirements so that they "do not apply to people developing blockchain technology and wallets" in the the same day the invoice became law.
"Now that this bill has been signed into law, Congress has a responsibility to ensure that it is implemented effectively and in accordance with the intent of Congress," the six senators said.
Portman, Crapo, Toomey, Warner, Sinema and Lummis added that they were "prepared to offer legislation" to clarify the definition of a broker.
Post navigation
