The U.S. Treasury Department finalized a rule on Friday requiring cryptocurrency brokers, including exchanges and payment processors, to report new information on users' sales and exchanges of digital assets to the Internal Revenue Service.
The new requirements aim to crack down on crypto users who may be failing to pay their taxes, and stem from the $1 trillion bipartisan 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. At the time the bill was passed, it was estimated that the new rules could bring in close to $28 billion over a decade.
The rule, which would be phased in starting next year for the 2026 tax filing season, align the tax requirements for cryptocurrencies with existing tax reporting requirements for brokers for other financial instruments, such as bonds and stocks, Treasury said.
The final rule was modified from Treasury's original proposal in order to limit some burdens on brokers and to phase in the new requirements in stages, Treasury officials said. It also includes a $10,000 threshold for reporting on transactions involving stablecoins, a type of crypto token typically pegged to an asset like the U.S. dollar.
The cryptocurrency industry had waged a comment letter campaign after Treasury proposed the rule last year, arguing that the scope of the proposal's definition of a broker was too broad and that the requirements violated the privacy of crypto owners.