A group of US lawmakers on Capitol Hill have got together to show bipartisan support to strike out some provisions in the newly signed infrastructure bill in the country. The move is being made by the pro-Bitcoin bloc in the Congress and has growing support from both Republicans and Democrats.
The recently passed and signed US infrastructure bill had bipartisan support in the Congress. The main focus of the legislation was to help prop up the ailing infrastructure sector in the country including the energy sector and communications. It envisages a spending of more than $1 trillion on this purpose nationwide. However, some regulatory hawks managed to include some strong crypto-skeptic regulation in between the massive bill and got it passed. This happened even as much of the blockchain and crypto caucus tried to have it stricken from the system.
The bill passed with the provisions within it. It is now required by law in the United States to report big crypto transactions to the IRS directly. This was negative news for the sector as the IRS has a history of making tax reporting difficult for citizens and once the crypto scene is out of the bag, it could easily spell trouble for the users here.
The pro-crypto caucus in the US House of Representatives have proposed a new bill to stop this ill-advised regulation to go into effect. The new bill is titled Keep Innovation in America Act and is going to change the definition of what is a broker to provide some relief the average crypto user. The new bill exempts various users of the blockchain ecosystem from the broker status including miners, developers, validators and others. The bill was co-sponsored by Patrick McHenry and Tim Ryan.
McHenry tweeted:
I introduced this bipartisan bill w/ @RepTimRyan to fix the new poorly constructed #digitalasset reporting requirements.
The Keep Innovation in America Act will provide clarity to innovators deploying the next generation of internet #technology. https://t.co/cAMWsPoiD8
— Patrick McHenry (@PatrickMcHenry) November 18, 2021
The new legislation also makes things more manageable for the crypto users by exempting them from reporting several transactions. According to news sources, the new proposal has support from several members of the House including representatives Kevin Brady, Ro Khanna, Tom Emmer, Eric Swalwell, Warren Davidson, Darren Soto, Anthony Gonzalez and Ted Budd. A parallel effort is also being pursued in the US Senate to have this crypto legislation removed from the new rulebook.
It isn’t known immediately just how much support there is for the sector within the two branches of the Congress and can the blockchain caucus rally to get more members onboard. There is also heavy lobbying being done in the background by crypto companies who are looking at this bill with a lot of apprehension. The provisions of the newly passed law that restricts crypto, however isn’t gong to be implemented till 2024 so the caucus has some time to make things happen.
Image Source: pixabay.com
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