This 12 months, we issued over 56 million Type 1099-DAs (tax kind required for reporting digital asset transactions) to the IRS, one for each reportable transaction our prospects made in 2025. That’s what the regulation requires regardless that practically a 3rd of these types (18.5 million) have been for transactions price lower than $1. Over half have been for $10 or much less. Three out of each 4 have been for lower than $50.
These types weren’t despatched to stylish merchants who made large returns from crypto. The overwhelming majority of the types are for staking rewards measured in fractions of a cent, small purchases, and routine exercise. Each single one generates a kind that an actual individual is now anticipated to grasp, reconcile, and report, or threat an IRS discover.
The issue isn’t the know-how. It’s the tax code.
What it already prices People to file their taxes
Earlier than digital belongings enter the image, the tax system already imposes a unprecedented compliance burden. In response to the Tax Basis, particular person tax returns alone price People a mixed $146 billion in time and out-of-pocket bills.
Moreover, based mostly on IRS estimates and unbiased filer surveys, the typical non-business filer spends about eight hours and between $128 and $300 on an ordinary return. Practically one in 5 People say they don’t really feel ready to file.
For the greater than 55 million U.S. adults who now maintain digital belongings, there’s an extra layer. Normal tax software program doesn’t deal with crypto transactions, so many traders want devoted crypto tax instruments that price $49 to $599 per 12 months on high of their common submitting prices.
A typical lively holder can spend $250 to $500 yearly simply to remain compliant, earlier than counting the hours spent reconciling transactions throughout exchanges and wallets.
However right here is the place it will get even tougher for the typical taxpayer. In 2025, brokers like Kraken report gross proceeds however not price foundation. Whereas many taxpayers have been reporting crypto taxes utilizing tax calculators or different software program, Type 1099-DA simply brought about taxpayers plenty of confusion because the types offered solely gross proceeds in a method many didn’t perceive.
We obtained 1000’s of questions from shoppers attempting to grasp the Kinds 1099-DA, along with 1000’s extra inquiries given the difficulties for exchanges to provide these on the timeline laid out by the IRS and Treasury.
The size of the issue: Kraken’s 1099-DA information
Here’s what Kraken’s personal reporting information reveals for the 2025 tax 12 months:
53.4% of all types have been for transactions of $10 or much less. 74.3% have been underneath $50. Solely 8.5% exceeded $600, the brink that triggers reporting in most different areas of the tax code resembling transactions on a cost app like Venmo.
The hours taxpayers spend reconciling these micro-transactions, usually with incomplete information, generate prices wildly disproportionate to any income the IRS will accumulate from them.
The excellent news is that some in Congress are working to handle this. Any tax reform that simplifies life for taxpayers ought to handle these core points.
Repair One: an actual de minimis exemption
The idea is easy: a de minimis exemption that excludes small, routine digital asset funds from capital positive aspects reporting.
Think about you stroll right into a Steak ’n Shake and pay for a $7.99 meal with Bitcoin by a cost app. You may have triggered a taxable occasion.
You’re technically required to lookup the associated fee foundation of the precise Bitcoin you spent, calculate whether or not you had a acquire or loss on that fraction of a coin, and report it on Type 8949. All for a hamburger and a few tallow fries.
The US is an outlier on this respect. The UK, as an illustration, applies an annual capital positive aspects allowance that successfully exempts small crypto transactions resembling this from reporting. A focused de minimis threshold wouldn’t be novel. It might simply catch America up.
And whereas present proposed tax laws does embody a de minimis provision, it solely covers cost stablecoins. It doesn’t cowl Bitcoin, essentially the most broadly held digital asset in America, which is accepted by 1000’s of U.S. retailers.
A significant de minimis threshold, listed to inflation and paired with anti-abuse guardrails, would remove tens of millions of pointless types whereas defending income integrity.
Congress has already established the regulatory framework for mainstream digital funds by the GENIUS Act, signed into regulation in July 2025. The tax code must be agnostic whether or not you’re paying with money, Bitcoin or stablecoins.
Repair Two: finish phantom earnings from staking
A big portion of these sub-dollar 1099-DAs are staking rewards: tiny fractions of tokens earned for serving to validate blockchain networks. Whereas the present regulation is unclear, the IRS takes the place that every reward is handled as bizarre earnings in the intervening time of receipt, valued at truthful market worth on that date.
Most individuals don’t promote staking rewards instantly. They maintain staking. However they now owe taxes on worth they haven’t realized. If the token value drops between receipt and submitting, the taxpayer owes tax on greater than the asset is at the moment price.
That is phantom earnings and it’s a consequence of making use of guidelines written for dividends and wages to a essentially completely different form of asset.
Congress ought to enable taxpayers to decide on when staking rewards are taxed: on the time of receipt (as in the present day) or on the time of sale, when the acquire or loss is actual and measurable. This is able to remove phantom earnings, dramatically cut back the amount of micro-transaction reporting, and align staking with how most People really expertise it, as one thing they maintain reasonably than one thing they spend.
Kraken and different exchanges already preserve the transaction degree information wanted to help both reporting methodology. The infrastructure exists; Congress merely must authorize the selection.
A bipartisan second for taxpayers
This isn’t about serving to crypto corporations. It’s about 55 million People, spanning each state, age bracket, and business, who’re navigating a tax system designed earlier than digital belongings existed. Congress ought to act to make taxpayers’ lives simpler.
