The US Treasury will relax corporate cryptocurrency tax rules

ChainThink news, October 1st, according to cryptoinamerica, the U.S. Treasury is preparing to formally relax a tax proposal that would have required companies such as Strategy, owned by Michael Saylor, to pay billions of dollars in taxes on unrealized Bitcoin gains, based on the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) regulations from the Biden era. CAMT stipulates a minimum tax rate of 15% on the financial statement income of large corporations.

Due to the current requirement by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that companies apply the "mark-to-market" accounting standard to crypto assets (i.e., recording gains and losses at current market prices regardless of whether they are sold), this means that Bitcoin's book profits would be taxed, while unrealized stock gains would be exempt. This poses a significant potential tax burden for companies like Strategy, which holds approximately $73 billion in Bitcoin.

The proposal has been jointly opposed by Strategy and Coinbase. In May this year, the two companies wrote a joint letter to the Treasury, urging an exemption from taxation on unrealized crypto gains, pointing out that the differential tax treatment of digital assets compared to traditional stocks and bonds is unfair. They warned that taxing book profits could force companies to sell Bitcoin solely for tax purposes, putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage in international competition, and even raising constitutional concerns about "taxing non-existent income."

As the U.S. Congress and the Trump administration have recently advanced the legislative process for digital asset taxation, the issue has gained increasing attention. This morning at 10 a.m., the Senate Finance Committee will hold a cryptocurrency tax hearing to continue the discussion.