Crypto Industry Makes Tax Policy Push With Private Dinner for Lawmakers

As crypto’s market structure bill slogs through the Senate, industry leaders have begun a concerted effort to advance separate tax-related priorities in Congress and within the Donald Trump administration.

On Monday, a powerful industry nonprofit, the American Innovation Project, hosted a private dinner with House members to “educate” the lawmakers on issues related to crypto tax policy and underscore “the lack of clarity” around the issue, sources with direct knowledge of the gathering told Decrypt. 

The dinner featured members of the tax-focused House Ways and Means Committee, including Adrian Smith (R-NE), Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Greg Murphy (R-NC), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Ron Estes (R-KS), and Mike Carey (R-OH), the sources said. 

Pro-crypto legislators, including Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), a member of both the House Agriculture and Financial Services committees, were also present.

Representatives for the congressmen did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Decrypt regarding the dinner.

The group behind the event, also known as AIP, also hosted a dinner for key Capitol Hill staffers last week on the same issues, the sources said. AIP is a new nonprofit backed by some of crypto’s biggest D.C. players, including Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, the Solana Policy Institute, and the Cedar Innovation Foundation, a pro-crypto dark money political spending group.

As a tax-exempt nonprofit, AIP, by law, must not be “operated for the benefit of private interests” or “attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities.” AIP members insisted to Decrypt that the tax-focused dinners focused on general education, not policy objectives. 

But in tandem with those events, the same players behind AIP are gearing up to push their crypto tax policy goals both in Congress and at the executive level.

On Thursday, the Solana Policy Institute, along with Paradigm and over 60 other crypto organizations, sent a letter to the White House imploring President Donald Trump to take swift action on numerous “quick wins” the groups said could be achieved immediately by his administration. 

A crypto policy executive familiar with the thinking behind the letter told Decrypt it was designed to encourage the Trump administration to focus on crypto-related goals achievable with the “stroke of a pen.” At the top of that wishlist, the source said, is tax policy. 

“Tax is huge on the list,” they emphasized. “That should be top of the agenda.”

The two highest priority tax issues the crypto industry is now pushing for are a de minimis exemption—which would eliminate taxes on small sales of crypto and everyday purchases made with cryptocurrencies—and favorable tax policies on crypto staking rewards, the executive added.

Crypto staking refers to the process of pledging a certain amount of cryptocurrency toward a network or protocol, thereby helping to secure the network or provide liquidity, and earning a yield on the amount pledged. The questions of when, exactly, those rewards should be taxed—when they’re earned or when they’re sold—has been a contentious issue for tax policy experts and regulators for years.

The same groups behind AIP are now gearing up to actively push these crypto tax goals in Congress.

The groups are supporting pro-crypto lawmakers in the Senate, including Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who have reiterated their commitment to a de minimis tax exemption. They’re also at work in the House, where the Ways and Means Committee—which was well-represented at AIP’s member dinner this week—is spearheading efforts to craft tax-related crypto legislation.