By JACOB BLISS
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, released a statement that slammed the so-called “infrastructure” bill’s provision to tax cryptocurrency as “unworkable.”
“Congress should not rush forward with this hastily-designed tax reporting regime for cryptocurrency, especially without a full understanding of the consequences,” Toomey wrote the day after the Senate released the text of the massive $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill.
“By including an overly broad definition of broker, the current provision sweeps in non-financial intermediaries like miners, network validators, and other service providers,” the senator continued.
Toomey then said that “these individuals never take control of a consumer’s assets and don’t even have the personal-identifying information needed to file a 1099 with the IRS. Simply put, the text is unworkable. I plan to offer an amendment to fix it.”
Breitbart News reported last week the bill could kill American jobs by including a $30 billion cryptocurrency tax. The tax could threaten jobs by pushing them offshore.
The report noted that the adoption of this type of legislation would require “any broker that transfers any digital currencies would need to file a tax return under a ‘modified information reporting regime.’”
This means that a digital asset could mean any type of a “digital representation of value which is recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or any similar technology as specified by the [Treasury] Secretary.’’
In turn, this will punish the industry, which is why Toomey said he would offer an amendment to fix the problem.
Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) exclusively told Breitbart News on Monday that the tax would be “devastating” for American jobs and competitiveness in the financial technology industry in parts of the country that are tech-heavy.
