Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said on October 1, 2026 that she does not expect digital asset tax legislation to clear Congress before the end of the year, citing Senate Finance Committee reluctance to reopen the tax code during the post-election lame-duck session.

"So it will surprise me if anything tax-related on digital assets gets done in the lame duck," Lummis said.

The comment caps a year in which one chamber moved and the other did not.

Where does the House bill stand?

On September 16, 2026, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, by a 38-5 vote. The bill addresses several long-standing questions in crypto taxation:

• A de minimis exemption carving small transactions out of tax treatment, so a minor crypto purchase does not trigger a bookkeeping event
• Mark-to-market accounting, offered as an election under IRC Section 475, letting taxpayers treat holdings as if sold at year-end value
• Specific rules for wash sales, mining, and staking

Senate Finance Committee members remain wary, however, that any tax-code amendments during the lame-duck window could drift away from the Working Families Tax Cut bill that passed in the previous year. That caution leaves the House bill without a realistic Senate runway before the new Congress convenes.

What has Lummis proposed so far?

Lummis has carried the tax agenda in the Senate for over a year. In July 2025 she introduced S. 2207, which proposed a $300 per-transaction de minimis exclusion capped at $5,000 annually. The bill was estimated to raise roughly $600 million net over ten years.

A separate draft, the ADAPT Act, circulated on September 30, 2026. It would make qualifying stablecoin purchases tax-neutral starting in 2027, removing a source of friction for exchanges and payment platforms handling those tokens.

Lummis also backs the CLARITY Act, a market structure bill that failed a key Senate vote in mid-September 2026 after partisan disputes blocked it.

What does the stall mean for taxpayers?

Without new legislation, crypto taxpayers keep operating under the existing framework. The practical consequences are concrete.

Proposals like S. 2207's $300 threshold exist to make small crypto payments workable; until something similar passes, using crypto for everyday purchases remains a paperwork burden, with each minor transaction a taxable event requiring records.

The House bill's rules for staking and mining income would give operators and individual validators clarity on how that income is treated. A Senate stall means that clarity stays theoretical.

The ADAPT draft's tax-neutral stablecoin treatment, meanwhile, would simplify accounting for platforms that process those tokens — but its 2027 start date already assumes legislative action that has not materialized.

For the industry, the upshot is a second consecutive year in which the Senate Finance Committee's posture, rather than House committee votes, determines the pace of crypto tax reform. Attention now shifts to whether the incoming Congress reintroduces H.R. 10357's provisions, and whether the next lame-duck or budget reconciliation window reopens the tax code at all.