Senators Warn: Tax on Imaginary Crypto Profits Could Turn Wall Street Into a Yardsale

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Senators Lummis and Moreno Plead: Save Us From Taxes on Cryptos Only the Mind Can Spend! 💸

Treasury Pressured to Act Fast as Unrealized Crypto Gains Face Tax Storm

If ever there was a tax as impeccably nonsensical as a teapot without a spout, it is the one that would demand payment on profits one might—if blessed by Fortune and Bitcoin’s unpredictable temperament—merely imagine. Such is the plight faced by the digital nouveaux riche, as Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH) deliver an epistolary cry for mercy to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. May 12, henceforth, shall be known as the day common sense was most sorely required in Washington.

Lummis, ever the Cassandra of Capitol Hill and now part-time drama correspondent on X (formerly a site only birds would name), dropped this dire warning:

Our edge in digital finance is at risk if U.S. companies are taxed more than foreign competitors.

“To remain digital sovereigns, sans being mugged by our own government, some consideration would be appreciated!” she implored, while Senator Moreno probably nodded with the weariness of a man taxed for simply existing near an NFT.

taxed on gains as fictional as a polite Twitter thread. The senators write, in a tone halfway between panic and exasperated laughter:

Failure to provide this clarity on unrealized gains in digital assets might require corporations to sell assets just to pay the tax, and it would disincentivize entities from maintaining large holdings of digital assets.

Sensible (if not yet sensibly attired), the senators beseeched the Treasury to wield its alphabet soup of authority—Sections 56A(c)(15) and 56A(e), if you must know—to exclude such mythical gains from the CAMT. If that sounds too bold, they propose a surgical intervention via ASU 2023-08 (because who doesn’t love narrow fixes that need broad explanations). All the while, foreign competitors stand by, gleeful in their immunity to American accounting melodramas, and innovation is left in the lurch.

History, of course, offers a charming precedent: the IRS once, in a moment of rare compassion, threw a lifeline to beleaguered insurers. The senators, hoping lightning strikes twice, offer to collaborate (or at the very least, commiserate) with Treasury staff—because, after all, nothing bonds people quite like realizing they might have to liquidate their ape JPEGs just to pay the government. 🎩🖼️

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2025-05-15 05:57