Coinbase's Chief Policy Officer is urging US lawmakers to reform crypto tax rules

Coinbase Pushes for Crypto Tax Reform, Says Current Rules Are a Burden

Coinbase is calling on US lawmakers to rethink crypto tax rules. The current framework, says chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad, is stuck in the past.

Here's the problem. Treating crypto as "property" means even small moves—like paying a gas fee or using stablecoins for everyday purchases—trigger a tax event. Users are stuck calculating cost bases, tracking gains and losses, and filing reports. It's a compliance headache.

Coinbase's numbers back up the strain. Tax-related customer service inquiries are up 34% compared to last year. The exchange expects to issue millions of 1099-DA forms in 2025, many of them for tiny transactions.

More than 63% of users have gaps in their cost basis records, according to Shirzad. That means taxpayers either overpay or find themselves manually reconciling trades. His suggestion? Create a de minimis exemption for small transactions to kill off the reporting burden for micro-payments. Without changes, he warns, users and innovation could drift overseas—hitting US competitiveness in the crypto space.