House Republicans push crypto wash sale bill as bitcoin halves since October 2025

Republican lawmakers are pressing to close a tax loophole that lets many cryptocurrency investors harvest losses without meaningfully exiting their positions, a strategy unavailable for most stocks and bonds under long-standing wash sale rules. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, introduced the Applying Existing Tax Anti-Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act on June 8, 2026, to subject digital assets to those rules, and a June 9 House Ways and Means Committee hearing reviewed the measure alongside five other digital-asset tax bills. Wash sale rules (tax rules limiting loss deductions after quick repurchases) generally stop investors from selling a security at a loss and buying back the same or a substantially similar asset within 30 days before or after the sale while still claiming the tax deduction. Crypto held directly is generally treated by the federal government as property rather than a security, leaving many digital-asset investors outside that restriction. H.R. 9172 would extend the rule to digital assets by disallowing a claimed loss when a substantially identical asset is repurchased within 30 days. The Treasury Department previously estimated that closing the loophole could raise roughly $23.5 billion over a decade. The House hearing also reviewed the bipartisan PARITY Act, which would more broadly align the tax treatment of digital assets with traditional stocks and addresses issues including stablecoins, staking rewards and mining income. Proposals under discussion also include de minimis exemptions, lending safe harbors and potential carve-outs for regulated payment stablecoins. Analysts say the push reflects stronger bipartisan interest in crypto tax legislation after repeated failed attempts since at least 2021. But major compliance questions remain, especially in decentralized finance, where tracking substantially identical assets across wallets, wrapped tokens, liquidity pool positions and cross-chain bridges is more complex than trading through a centralized platform. As of late July 2026, no final legislation had passed and industry lobbying remained active.