United States House Committee on Ways and Means

The profile

The committee describes itself as the chief tax-writing committee in the House of Representatives, and grounds its standing in Article I, Section VII of the Constitution, under which all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House. Its jurisdiction runs to taxes, tariffs, trade agreements, Social Security, Medicare and social services programmes, and it works through six subcommittees: Tax, Trade, Health, Social Security, Oversight, and Work & Welfare. Its own account dates it to a select committee created on 24 July 1789, reconstituted in 1795 and made a standing committee on 7 January 1802, and calls it the oldest committee of the United States Congress, counting eight Presidents, eight Vice Presidents, twenty-two Speakers of the House and four Supreme Court Justices among its alumni. On this beat its work had been indirect until September 2026: digital asset market structure sits with Financial Services and Agriculture in the House and with Banking and Agriculture in the Senate, and tax treatment had moved through standalone bills that went nowhere. That changed with H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, introduced on 14 September 2026 by the chair, Jason Smith of Missouri, with eight other members, and noticed the same evening for markup at 10 a.m. on 16 September in HVC-210. The bill rewrites the Internal Revenue Code's treatment of digital assets across seven titles, from a de minimis fee exception and a par rule for licensed dollar stablecoins to wash sale and constructive sale rules, the sourcing and character of mining and staking income, and a voluntary disclosure programme with a decaying penalty schedule.