VIRTUAL CURRENCIES—President signs infrastructure bill with IRS crypto reporting provision - 17 November 2021

The bipartisan infrastructure bill contains mostly traditional transportation funding but also contains a cryptocurrency transaction reporting provision that may presage further Congressional regulation of blockchain activities.

President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) thus ending a months-long odyssey resulting in a compromise bill that passed the Senate first in August by a vote of 69-30 and then the House in November by a vote of 228-206, but only after a lengthy holding pattern in the House that ended with an agreement among House Democrats on whether moderate Democrats would vote for the forthcoming Build Back Better Act (BBBA) (H.R. 5376). That agreement may still hinge on how the Congressional Budget Office scores the BBBA.

Crypto and implementation. For securities law practitioners, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s cryptocurrency transaction reporting provision is one of its signature features, although this may not be the last time Congress addresses cryptocurrency issues in the coming months.

Much of the bill, however, concerns more traditional transportation and other infrastructure spending. Given the amounts of funds to be provided by the bill, the president also announced an executive order (Fact Sheet) creating the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force within the Executive Office of the President to help coordinate implementation of the Act by executive branch agencies. The president further announced that the former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, will be senior advisor responsible for coordinating implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

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