Rep. Anna Eshoo Asks Pelosi to Amend Infrastructure Bill’s Crypto Provision

In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA-18) has expressed concerns about a controversial new provision on crypto tax reporting.

The provision was a last-minute addition to the much fussed-over infrastructure bill, which would put over $1 trillion into the nation’s public works. The Senate passed it earlier this week, and it’s headed to the House later this year.

On Twitter, Eshoo wrote that the bill “imposes new reporting requirements on miners, validators & developers of wallets who would be unable to comply with these requirements.”

She’s referring specifically to the bill’s broadening the definition of the word “broker” for the purposes of tax reporting; the current language is nebulous enough to include crypto miners, validators, and software developers. A few different amendments were proposed, some of which specifically excluded miners, though none passed.

Lobbyists for the crypto industry—progressive and conservative alike—have pushed back against this portion of the bill. Miners and validators, they argue, are the foundation of Web 3 infrastructure; these tax reporting requirements would mean everyone even remotely involved in crypto would need to be identified to the government in some way.

This is complicated by the fact that miners have no way of accessing identifying information about the traders initiating new transactions, beyond their crypto addresses. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit, has called it a “disaster for digital privacy.”

Eshoo represents California’s 18th congressional district, which encompasses much of Silicon Valley. The hashtag at the end of today’s tweet, #DontKillCrypto, drove her point home