Congressmen Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and Max Miller (R-Ohio) reintroduced their Digital Asset Protection, Accountability, Regulation, Innovation, Taxation, and Returns (PARITY) Act late last month, seeking to update the way the United States approaches cryptocurrencies and taxes.
Congress will take up taxes (in general) in the coming months, and cryptocurrencies may end up being part of this. It is quite important for anyone in the US who owns any crypto, as they will have to report their digital asset holdings and transactions.
The PARITY Act was first published in discussion draft form last December and was republished on March 26 for further review.
The most immediately visible change appears to be the section addressing “de minimis” profits. De minimis exemptions generally allow certain transactions to be exempt from tax reporting. Under such an exemption, individuals do not have to report the transaction or worry about the tax burden that might otherwise result.
The industry has long sought a de minimis exemption for small transactions, which could make it easier for people to do things like buy coffee without having to report a capital gain or loss on the cryptocurrency used in that transaction. The December 2025 version of the PARITY Act began with a section addressing de minimis exemptions for payments made through “regulated payment stablecoins,” with a note that said the threshold would be $200.
While the section did not appear to extend these exemptions to digital assets like Bitcoin the note went on to say that it targeted stablecoins specifically because of the GENIUS Act.
The March 2026 version of the text did not explicitly say that there should be a de minimis exemption, but some parts seemed to address that concern:
“In the case of any sale of a regulated payment stablecoin, no gain or loss shall be recognized on such sale unless the taxpayer’s basis in such stablecoin is less than 99 percent of the exchange value of such stablecoin,” the bill said. It removed the $200 threshold and created a $1 estimated base for exchanges, which are independent of stablecoin sales.
The latest draft would also apply wash sale rules to digital asset transactions, which is not a particularly controversial position: Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) even included wash sale provisions in her tax bill last year.
This bill would also draw a distinction between “passive betting” and activities such as trading.
It’s unclear what the next steps for this bill might be; While there is talk of a reconciliation tax bill and US President Donald Trump revealed his budget requests for fiscal year 2027, it is far from certain that the reconciliation bill will happen or that cryptocurrencies will be part of it.
However, conversations with industry participants over the past few weeks suggest that there will be a strong push to include cryptocurrencies in any tax legislation that is likely to become law.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally sent as part of CoinDesk’s State of Crypto newsletter earlier this month.
