US Congress members Steven Horsford and Max Miller once again presented the bill called the Digital Asset Protection, Accountability, Regulation, Innovation, Taxation and Yields (PARITY) Act at the end of March. The bill aims to update existing legislation on how digital assets and cryptocurrency transactions will be treated for tax purposes in the United States.
Prominent changes in the bill proposal
The PARITY Act was first brought to the agenda as a draft text in December. In the new version submitted to the Congress for review on March 26, some important updates were made to the existing articles and limits.
One of the prominent topics was the regulations regarding “de minimis”, that is, tax exemption for small amount transactions. De minimis exemptions ensure that transactions made below a certain amount are exempt from tax reporting and additional liabilities.
The crypto industry has long sought an exemption for low-volume transactions; Thus, the declaration requirement for small-scale crypto expenditures, for example when purchasing a coffee, would be eliminated, and users would gain convenience in practical use.
In the previous version of the bill for 2025, this exemption was planned to be applied for transactions worth up to $200 in transactions with regulated payment stablecoins. However, in the most recent draft, this direct figure was removed from the text, instead defining certain conditions for sales of “regulated payment stablecoins”.
New criteria and uncertainties for crypto transactions
In the new text, for the sale of “regulated payment stablecoin”; If the seller’s cost in the stablecoin is less than 99% compared to the redemption value of that asset, the gain or loss from the sale will not be taxed. With the change, the $200 threshold was removed; Additionally, stablecoin transactions processed by exchanges will automatically be based on a cost of $1.
Another important topic in the bill is the introduction of the “wash sale” rule for digital asset transactions. This regulation, which was also included in last year’s bill proposed by US senator Cynthia Lummis, aims to prevent short-term buying and selling transactions in order to provide tax advantages.
The proposal also proposes separating transactions known as passive staking from commercial transactions, in which the investor contributes to network verification but does not engage in trading activity. Thus, the scope of taxation of earnings from staking will be clarified.
Uncertainties continue during the execution process. Both the expectation of a new tax reform for reconciliation purposes and the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget requests did not create clarity regarding the fate of the bill.
On the other hand, meetings with industry players in recent weeks indicate that there is a serious will to consider any tax regulation in the crypto field within the scope of the new law.
“On the sale of any regulated payment stablecoin, if the taxpayer’s cost in the stablecoin is less than 99% of the total redemption value, the gain or loss arising from the transaction will not be taxed,” the bill stated.
In the new version of the bill, the scope of the de minimis exemption was limited to stablecoins. While there is no privilege for Bitcoin and similar digital assets, the exemption highlighted for stablecoins appears to aim to create a more supervised area.
At this time, it is not clear in the short term how the bill will move forward in Congress and whether cryptos will be included.
