The digital asset industry in the United States might finally see a positive change due to the decision made by the Treasury Department.
As regulatory figures in the US had various decentralized platforms under the microscope over the past months, the Department of Treasury might be the first authoritative institution to make a decision in favor of the crypto industry.
Based on a letter that was sent to the US Treasury, cryptocurrency miners, staking platforms, online or hardware wallet distributors won't be facing "tax reporting obligations" from the IRS.
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The decision came in due to the fact that digital asset service providers are not considered brokers because they do not have access to any customer information
According to the letter content, written by Jonathan Davidson, who is the Treasury Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, these crypto platforms "cannot get access to information that is useful to the IRS." Therefore, the secretary assistant doesn’t see any point in including them amongst brokerage tax requirements.
The letter was shared by US Senator Rob Portman on social media, who received it amongst 5 other senators, reiterating that crypto staking platforms and miners "are not subject to tax reporting obligations."
More specifically, the letter states that "persons who are just validating transactions through a consensus mechanism are not likely to know whether a transaction is part of a sale, and persons who are only selling storage devices used to hold private keys or write software code are not carrying out broker activities."
On the other hand, Davidson seeks to propose certain regulations that will have a definition of what defines a broker so the difference between traditional and cryptocurrency financial service providers is clear.
With the letter favoring the crypto industry, the SEC seems to have other plans for digital assets as it was rumored by US Commissioner Hester Peirce that the agency seeks to impose strict regulations on DeFi platforms.
