The disclosure program we have argued for is now in the chairman's bill

What happened

On September 14, 2026, House Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith introduced H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, with eight bipartisan cosponsors. Two days later the committee took it up at a full-committee markup and ordered it reported, 38–5. A chairman introducing a bill under his own name and scheduling it for markup within 48 hours is not an ordinary bill introduction. It is the committee signalling that this is the vehicle.

The bill is an omnibus: seven titles covering the use of digital assets as a medium of exchange, parity with traditional financial assets, anti-abuse rules, mining and staking, and compliance. It did not appear from nowhere — several of its titles map onto the individual bills the committee considered at its June 9, 2026 legislative hearing on digital asset taxation.

Section 502: the Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program

This is the provision we care most about, and the reason this page exists. Under Section 502, the Treasury Secretary would be required to establish a Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program within twelve months of enactment. What follows tracks the introduced bill text; Section 502 reads the same in the substitute the committee approved.

Not later than 12 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall establish the Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program … to allow eligible taxpayers to remedy digital asset violations.

To participate, a taxpayer files amended returns for every affected year within 24 months of the program opening, and pays the resulting deficiency plus interest and a set penalty — or enters an installment agreement under section 6159.

Two tracks, and the penalty difference is large

The bill splits participants by whether they will certify, under penalty of perjury, that no violation was committed fraudulently or willfully.

• A certified eligible taxpayer makes that certification and pays 0 percent on the first $25,000 of deficiency per year and 5 percent above it. Treasury may not assert further penalties under section 6662.
• An uncertified eligible taxpayer does not certify, must apply and be approved, and pays 25 percent on the first $25,000 per year and 40 percent above it. In exchange, Treasury may not assert further penalties under sections 6662 or 6663, and — the provision that matters most — may not use what is disclosed to refer that taxpayer for criminal investigation or prosecute them under sections 7201, 7203, or 7206.

The detail nobody is reporting: the penalties rise after twelve months

Section 502 contains a sliding scale that rewards coming forward early. For amended returns filed more than twelve months after the program opens, every rate increases:

Correction, September 17, 2026: an earlier version of this table applied the $25,000 breakpoint to certified taxpayers who file after twelve months. For them the bill substitutes $100,000 for $25,000 (Section 502(d)(5)(B)(v) of the bill text): 5 percent on the first $100,000 of each year’s deficiency and 10 percent above it.

For a taxpayer who can certify, the practical reading is stark: filing in the first year of the program could mean paying no penalty at all on the first $25,000 of deficiency each year, and waiting could cost real money. Anyone who has been putting this off should be getting their records in order now, not when the program opens.

One limit worth knowing: a taxpayer already under IRS audit or criminal investigation needs a waiver from the Secretary to participate at all. The window is for people who come forward before the government arrives.

What else is in the bill

The seven titles, as they appear in the bill’s own table of contents:

Two provisions outside Title V are worth flagging because they change behaviour immediately. Section 101 would exempt from gain and loss recognition digital assets spent on network or transaction fees of $10 or less — with dealers, traders, and anyone making more than 5,000 transfers a year excluded. And Section 301 would extend the wash sale rules to traded digital assets, applying to dispositions after September 14, 2026, the day the bill was introduced; the committee’s substitute writes that date into the text. If enacted as drafted, that is a change with a trigger date already behind us, not a future one.

What this means for the disclosure fight

A standalone bill, H.R. 9174, has proposed a digital asset voluntary disclosure program since June 8, 2026. It has not moved and has no cosponsors. Section 502 now carries the same idea inside a chairman-sponsored vehicle that is actually moving.

Section 502 came through the committee intact. On September 16, 2026 the Ways & Means Committee ordered H.R. 10357 favorably reported, as amended by Chairman Smith’s amendment in the nature of a substitute, by a recorded vote of 38–5. The approved substitute keeps Section 502 word for word, and the Joint Committee on Taxation’s description of the substitute (JCX-50-26) lists no change to it: the substitute’s changes replace “the date of the introduction of this Act” with “September 14, 2026” in several effective-date clauses. The next test is the House floor, which is why constituent pressure on this specific section still matters.

Last updated September 15, 2026