Legislation

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On July 11, 2023, the Senate Finance Committee released an open letter to the Digital Asset Community asking a variety of questions in connection with possible future legislation. Public comments must be emailed to the Senate Finance Committee staff at responses@finance.senate.gov by September 8, 2023. The questions are related to the following nine general areas.

  • Marking-to-market for traders and dealers;
  • Trading safe harbor;
  • Treatment of loans of digital assets;
  • Wash sales;
  • Constructive sales;
  • Timing and source of income earned from staking and mining;
  • Nonfunctional currency;
  • FATCA and FBAR reporting; and
  • Valuation and substantiation.

The balance of this blog describes each area, lists each question, and discusses certain of them.

On March 28, 2022, the Biden Administration proposed changes to the taxation of real property.

Restrict Deferral of Gain for Like-Kind Exchanges under Section 1031

The Biden Administration has proposed to limit the gain that can be deferred under a like-kind exchange of real estate under section 1031 to $500,000/year…

On March 28, 2022, the Biden Administration proposed certain very limited changes to the taxation of cryptocurrency transactions. The proposals do not change the current treatment of cryptocurrency as property for federal income tax purposes, and do not address any of the fundamental tax issues that cryptocurrency raise.

I. Apply Securities Loan Rules to Digital Assets

Under current law, securities loans that satisfy certain requirements are tax-free under section 1058.[1] The Biden Administration’s proposal would expand section 1058 to apply to “actively traded digital assets” recorded on cryptographically secured distributed ledgers, so long as the loan agreement contains similar terms to those currently required for loans of securities. [2] The Secretary would also have the authority to define “actively traded” and extend section 1058 to “non-actively traded” digital assets. In addition, the proposal would require a lender to include in gross income amounts that would have been included had the lender not loaned the digital asset (i.e., “substitute payments”). The proposals would be effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2022.

The tax reform bills introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate dramatically reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and create added incentives for taxpayers to invest capital into U.S. businesses with expanded expensing and reduced flow-through rates.

But the bills were drafted quickly, Congress is rushing to get them passed by the end of the year, and the Internal Revenue Code is a complicated thing. Unintended consequences result, and pass-throughs offer opportunities.  In fact, a drafting glitch may provide hedge and lending fund investors with an inadvertent tax reduction.

Today, the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives released their long-anticipated tax reform bill, entitled the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”. While there have been multiple statements from the Republican majority in the House that swift action is expected on this bill, the text proposed today all but certainly will be extensively revised in the legislative process. Further, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate are expected to introduce their own tax reform bill as early as next week, and that bill is anticipated to diverge from the House bill in many respects and, in order for tax reform to be enacted, the House and Senate will have to pass a single piece of agreed legislation, which the President must in turn sign into law.

Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code generally limits the deductibility of compensation paid in excess of $1 million to the chief executive officer and the three other highest compensated officers (other than the chief financial officer) of a public corporation with securities registered under Section 12 of the Exchange…