The Blockchain Association and a coalition of digital asset trade groups have formally pushed the House Ways and Means Committee to advance the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, a bill that could fundamentally reshape how the IRS treats rewards earned through blockchain validation.

The legislation, introduced as H.R. 9175 by Rep. Mike Carey on June 8, 2026, targets one of the more persistent headaches in crypto taxation: the question of when, exactly, mining and staking rewards become taxable income.

What the bill actually does

Under current IRS guidelines, staking and mining rewards must be included in gross income the moment a taxpayer gains control over them. You owe taxes on tokens the instant they land in your wallet, regardless of whether you’ve sold them or even know what they’re worth yet.

The Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act would change this by allowing taxpayers to defer income recognition until the digital assets are actually sold or otherwise disposed of. When that sale eventually happens, the rewards would be classified as ordinary income.

This approach mirrors how US tax law has traditionally handled what’s known as “self-created property.” The bill argues that newly minted tokens created through mining or staking should follow the same logic.

There’s another wrinkle the legislation addresses: grantor trusts. The bill would protect the tax status of grantor trusts that engage in staking activities, ensuring that institutions using this common legal structure don’t face unexpected tax complications simply for participating in blockchain validation.

The legislative context

The timing of the Blockchain Association’s push is deliberate. The House Ways and Means Committee held a full committee legislative hearing on digital asset taxation on June 9, 2026, just one day after the bill was introduced. The hearing featured testimony from industry representatives, including Coinbase’s tax VP.

Chairman Jason Smith has expressed support for the bill. His reasoning centers on what he describes as existing conflicts in current tax laws that impose heavy compliance burdens and risks for blockchain participants.

The advocacy letter from the Blockchain Association and its three allied trade groups arrived around June 21, 2026, roughly two weeks after the hearing, maintaining pressure on the committee to act.

Why this matters for investors

Under the current framework, a staker who receives tokens worth $10 each owes taxes on that $10 value immediately. If the token’s price subsequently drops to $2 before the staker sells, they’ve paid taxes on income they never actually realized. Yes, they could claim a capital loss on the sale, but the mismatch between when the tax liability hits and when the economic reality plays out creates genuine cash flow problems.

Deferring taxation until disposal eliminates this timing mismatch entirely. The staker would simply pay ordinary income tax on whatever the tokens are worth when they’re actually sold, creating a single, clean taxable event instead of a confusing two-step process.

The bill’s protection of grantor trust tax status is particularly relevant for institutional investors. Many institutional investment vehicles are structured as grantor trusts, and any ambiguity around how staking activity affects that tax status creates legal uncertainty for allocators considering staking as a yield strategy.