U.S. Crypto Tax Proposal Lets Miners Off the Hook, Snares ‘Some’ Decentralized Exchanges

The U.S. Treasury Department has finally unveiled its definition of a "broker" for the crypto industry, defining how crypto companies and investors will need to meet tax reporting obligations and answering a years-old question over whether decentralized finance platforms and miners will need to gather their users' personal data. The Treasury Department published a nearly 300-page proposed rule on Friday in response to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act saying centralized crypto exchanges. The big exchanges and cryptocurrency brokers would have a couple of years to get up to speed on the new tax-reporting system, which is a much longer runway than originally anticipated by the lawmakers who shepherded the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – and its crypto tax provisions – into law. The proposal is, so far, just that. The government still has to take in all the public comments by October 30 and listen to participants in a set of public hearings on November 7 and 8. Where the industry may balk is the treatment of decentralized exchanges, some of which could be roped into the reporting requirement even as they may insist that there’s no staff or management to handle such affairs.