A proposed bill in the United States would create a dedicated process for crypto investors to correct certain past tax-reporting mistakes, potentially with lower and more predictable penalties for taxpayers who come forward voluntarily.
Section 502 of the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, would require the Treasury secretary to establish a Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program within 12 months after the legislation becomes law. The proposal has cleared an important committee hurdle, but it is not yet law and would still need approval from both chambers of Congress and the president’s signature.
According to Cointelegraph, the program would allow eligible taxpayers to file amended returns, pay the tax they owe and cover interest and a program penalty. The measure is aimed mainly at people whose reporting failures were not fraudulent or willful, rather than at taxpayers who deliberately evaded tax.
A proposed fix for earlier tax years
The proposal comes as US crypto users face increased reporting visibility. The first filing season under new 1099-DA broker reporting rules gives the Internal Revenue Service more information about digital-asset transactions. Those rules are intended to make future reporting easier, but they do not resolve mistakes from years before the new requirements took effect.
Andrew Gordon, executive director of Digital Asset Tax Action, said many investors did not report their transactions correctly and that current procedures do not provide a predictable route for people who made honest mistakes. Investors may only discover years later that they misunderstood the tax treatment of crypto-to-crypto transactions or failed to combine records from several exchanges and wallets.
The House Ways and Means Committee approved the bill by a 38-5 vote on Sept. 16. The vote does not guarantee enactment. The bill must still pass the House and Senate before it can be sent to the president.
The issue is significant because crypto-tax reporting can involve more than converting digital assets into dollars. People may misunderstand when a transaction creates a taxable event, misclassify activity or rely on incomplete records supplied by a trading platform. A 2026 report from CoinTracker and Coinbase found that 49% of crypto users correctly understood that selling crypto can be taxable.
How the proposed program would work
Section 502 would generally give taxpayers 24 months from the program’s establishment to submit amended returns. It sets out different penalty schedules depending on whether a taxpayer certifies that the violations were neither fraudulent nor willful.
For taxpayers making that certification, the proposed rates would be:
- 0% on the first $25,000 of tax deficiency per year if filed during the program’s first 12 months.
- 5% on any amount above $25,000 during that initial period.
Taxpayers who do not make the certification would face a higher schedule: 25% on the first $25,000 of deficiency and 40% on amounts above that. The rates would increase if taxpayers missed the initial filing window.
The proposal would also provide relief from specified civil penalties. For taxpayers who do not certify, it would block criminal referrals based on information properly disclosed for the tax offenses covered by the provision. The bill would not eliminate the underlying tax or interest owed.
The certification would carry the consequences of a statement made under penalty of perjury. That means a taxpayer could not simply describe a reporting failure as accidental without considering whether the facts support that conclusion.
Difference from the existing IRS process
The IRS already operates a Voluntary Disclosure Practice, but that process is designed for taxpayers whose conduct was willful and who may face criminal exposure. It is not a crypto-specific framework for ordinary investors trying to correct non-willful reporting errors.
Taxpayers can currently file amended returns, but the proposed legislation’s supporters say the existing approach does not offer consistent or clearly defined penalty treatment for crypto cases. Sharon Yip, a certified public accountant and founder of Crypto Tax Advisors, said her firm has encountered clients who believed no tax was due until they sold crypto for cash. Others had incomplete exchange records or classified their transactions incorrectly.
Yip said a dedicated program could establish a defined correction period, reduced penalties and greater certainty for people who voluntarily disclose their mistakes. She recommended that taxpayers review transaction histories across exchanges and wallets, identify the affected years and assess whether the errors were genuinely non-willful before deciding how to proceed. Where the facts are unclear, she advised seeking professional guidance.
Current market picture
Moneyiar market data at 22:14 on Oct. 19, 2026, showed the following prices and performance:
- Gram (prev. Toncoin) (GRAM): $1.3617185857, up 1.72% over 24 hours and down 0.42% over seven days.
- Ethena (ENA): $0.1879469928, up 2.09% over 24 hours and down 11.01% over seven days.
- AKEDO (AKE): $0.0298763028, down 1.57% over 24 hours and up 25.69% over seven days.
- would (WOULD): $0.0351412837, up 0.33% over 24 hours and up 10.6% over seven days.
The proposed disclosure program remains contingent on the legislative process. Until the bill becomes law, the penalties and procedures described in Section 502 are not available under the proposal.
