US Congress Sets Date for Infrastructure Plan Vote

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a final vote on the infrastructure bill for Thursday, September 30, and expressed confidence in its passage. Reuters reports.

Debates on the bill will begin on Monday, September 27, she said.

On August 10 the Senate voted for a bipartisan plan, which provides for $1 trillion in funding for roads, bridges, airports, schools and other projects. The bill would raise an additional $28 billion in the form of taxes on cryptocurrency transactions.

In the community the document was criticized for its broadened definition of ‘broker’, which covers nearly everyone in the industry. Under its provisions, miners and node operators, wallet developers, liquidity providers in DeFi protocols and other non-custodial players could be required to report user transactions to the tax authorities.

During discussion of the bill, Democratic senators Ron Wyden, Cynthia Lummis and Pat Toomey proposed to exclude these activities from the document and not extend to them the broker-style rules.

He was joined by Republican Rob Portman, but introduced a counter-amendment that would exclude only miners and sellers of equipment or software that allows individuals to control private keys.

On August 9, representatives from both parties and the Treasury Department reached a compromise, but the corresponding amendment did not receive the necessary unanimous support. The bill moved to the lower chamber of Congress in its original form.

In the House of Representatives called for changes to the document. On August 24, congressmen voted for the bill without any amendments.

The Treasury Department assured that it does not intend to interpret the term ‘broker’ broadly in relation to industry participants. The department also promised to publish guidance on the taxation of crypto companies and to clarify the reporting requirements.

As reported, concerns were raised in the community about yet another amendment to the infrastructure plan, which would require recipients of digital assets over $10,000 to verify the sender’s personal information.