On March 11, 2025, the United States House of Representatives passed a joint resolution to overturn a rule that the IRS had promulgated regarding “Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales” (the “Gross Proceeds Rule”).[1] The United States Senate passed a joint resolution to the same effect on March 4, 2025. [2]
The rule, finalized on December 30, 2024, requires persons that facilitate the exchange of digital assets to report the name and address of each customer and information regarding gross proceeds to the IRS.[3]
The IRS and Treasury Department had promulgated this rule under section 6045(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides the Treasury Department with the authority to issue regulations regarding returns from every person doing business as a broker.[4] The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 had amended the definition of “broker” under the section 6045 to include “any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.”[5]
The rule attracted criticism due to fears that it “would devastate the American digital asset industry and American innovation by requiring those participating on decentralized finance exchanges to satisfy unworkable and overly burdensome reporting requirements – including collecting sensitive taxpayer information.”[6]
The House of Representatives passed the joint resolution overturning the Gross Proceeds Rule under the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”). The CRA allows Congress under certain circumstances to prevent a rule from taking effect if it enacts a joint resolution to that effect.[7] Once such a joint resolution is enacted, the rule in question cannot be reissued or included in a new rule in substantially the same form unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution.[8]
[1] H.J. Res. 25, 119th Cong.
[2] S.J. Res. 3, 119th Cong.
[3] See 89 Fed. Reg. 106928, 106928, 106958-959 (December 30, 2024).
[4] I.R.C. § 6045(a).
[5] Id. § 6045(c)(1)(D).
[6] United States House Committee on Ways & Means, House Passes Ways & Means Legislation to Rollback Biden Administration’s Midnight Crypto Rule in Bipartisan Vote, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/25/all-actions.
[7] See 5 U.S.C. § 801-808.
[8] 5 U.S.C. § 801(b)(2).
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