Congress's New Crypto Tax Bill Has a $10 Rule That Could Change How You Get Paid

If your business has ever thought about accepting cryptocurrency, there's a reason most owners decided against it: under current tax law, almost any crypto transaction — even paying a small network fee — can count as a taxable event you're supposed to track and report. A sweeping bill released by the House Ways and Means Committee on September 15, 2026, and scheduled for a committee markup on Wednesday, September 17, aims to clear that out for good, but the fix comes with a catch most small business owners haven't heard about yet.

The Bill: Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act

The 114-page Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R. 10357), introduced by Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), rolls several previously separate crypto tax proposals into one package. It's scheduled for markup at 10 a.m. ET on September 17 — the committee vote that decides whether the bill advances toward the full House floor.

For most small business owners, the headline provision is a new $10 de minimis exception: transactions used to pay "qualifying network or transaction fees" in crypto — think the small fee charged to process a payment on a blockchain — won't trigger a taxable gain or loss if the fee is $10 or less. It sounds like a small technical fix, but it targets a real, well-documented headache.

Why Small Crypto Fees Have Been a Tax Nightmare

Under existing IRS rules, cryptocurrency is treated as property, not currency. That means every time you spend it — even to cover a few dollars in network fees on a transaction — you're technically required to calculate whether that crypto had gained or lost value since you acquired it, and report the difference. A business that accepts crypto payments and pays out small transaction fees dozens of times a week could, in theory, generate dozens of tiny taxable events a week, each one needing to be tracked and reported.

In practice, this is exactly why many small businesses that looked into accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins backed away: the compliance burden of tracking every micro-transaction outweighed the appeal of a new payment option. The $10 exception is aimed directly at that friction — it lets routine, low-dollar fee payments happen without triggering a reporting obligation.

The Catch: It Doesn't Start Until 2028

Here's what most coverage of the bill has glossed over: the de minimis exception, along with several other simplification provisions, doesn't take effect until 2028. If you're weighing whether to start accepting crypto payments this year or next, this particular relief won't apply yet — you'd still be operating under the current, more burdensome rules for at least another year or two, assuming the bill even becomes law on the current timeline.

Other Provisions That Affect Business Owners

Beyond the de minimis fee exception, the bill includes several other changes relevant to any business that holds, accepts, or pays employees or contractors in digital assets:

• Stablecoin basis rules: For U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins that deviate slightly from their $1 peg, the bill generally allows businesses to treat the redemption value as their tax basis if the coin was acquired near that peg — reducing the need to track minor price fluctuations on assets that are supposed to be stable.
• Simplified annual accounting: Starting in 2028, businesses could opt into simplified annual accounting for widely traded digital assets instead of transaction-by-transaction tracking.
• Mining and staking income: Income from mining or staking activity continues to be taxed as ordinary income, though the bill removes a previously floated option to defer tax on newly minted assets.
• Wash-sale rules extended: The 30-day wash-sale disallowance rule that already applies to stocks would be extended to digital assets, closing a loophole that let crypto holders sell at a loss and immediately repurchase to claim a tax deduction.
• Voluntary disclosure program: The Treasury Department would be required to stand up a Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program within 12 months of enactment, giving businesses and individuals a formal path to correct past crypto tax filings without necessarily facing the harshest penalties.

What This Means If You're Considering Crypto Payments

For a retailer, restaurant, or service business weighing whether to add a "pay with crypto" option at checkout, the practical takeaway is this: relief is coming, but it isn't here yet, and it isn't guaranteed. The bill still has to clear committee, pass the full House, pass the Senate, and be signed into law — and even then, the core simplification doesn't kick in until 2028.

That doesn't mean accepting crypto today is impossible. Many businesses use third-party payment processors that convert crypto to dollars instantly at the point of sale, which sidesteps most of the tracking burden because the business itself never actually holds the crypto or triggers a taxable event — the processor absorbs that complexity. If you're evaluating that kind of setup, it's worth treating it the same way you'd evaluate any new payment method: understand the processor's fees, settlement timing, and how the transactions will show up on your books.

Steps to Take Now

• If you already accept crypto directly (not through a processor that auto-converts to cash), talk to a tax professional about how the current transaction-by-transaction reporting rules apply to your specific setup — don't wait for 2028 relief that isn't law yet.
• Make sure any crypto income or payments are clearly reflected on your profit and loss statement, separate from cash transactions, so you're not caught off guard at tax time.
• If you're structuring a new business around digital assets — a payment processor, an NFT-adjacent service, or a crypto-accepting retailer — revisit whether your current entity type still makes sense; the choice between an LLC and an S corporation can affect how that income is taxed.
• Keep transaction records tied to a dedicated business bank account or wallet, separate from personal funds, regardless of what Congress ultimately decides.
• If you pay any contractors or freelancers in crypto, make sure you're still correctly applying the rules for independent contractor versus employee classification — digital payment doesn't change those underlying labor rules.

How We Got Here: A Decade of Crypto Tax Confusion

This isn't Washington's first attempt to fix crypto tax rules. For years, digital asset investors and businesses have complained that the IRS treats cryptocurrency more strictly than almost any other asset class. Buying a cup of coffee with Bitcoin, technically, has required calculating a capital gain or loss on the coffee purchase — a requirement so impractical that most everyday users simply ignored it, creating a widening gap between what the law says and what actually gets reported.

Starting with the 2025 tax year, exchanges and brokers began issuing a new form, the 1099-DA, specifically for digital asset transactions — part of a broader push to bring crypto reporting in line with how stock trades are already reported. That change increased visibility into crypto activity for both the IRS and taxpayers, but it didn't solve the underlying problem of tiny, routine transactions generating outsized paperwork. The Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act is, in large part, an attempt to finish that cleanup by carving out the transactions too small to matter — starting with that $10 network fee threshold.

What Happens Next

Wednesday's markup is a vote within the Ways and Means Committee, not a final decision. If the bill advances, it would head to the full House for a floor vote, then to the Senate, where crypto tax legislation has moved slowly in recent years due to disagreements over scope. Business owners with a direct stake in crypto payments should watch this bill's progress over the coming months rather than assume the $10 exception — or any other provision — is guaranteed to become law on the current schedule.

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