New Broker Gross Proceeds Reporting Rule: A Guide for Accountants
Key Takeaways
The Treasury Department's final rule on gross proceeds reporting by brokers that regularly provide services effectuating digital asset sales (89 FR 106928) became effective February 28, 2025.
The rule requires covered brokers to file information returns and furnish payee statements reporting gross proceeds on digital asset dispositions they effect for customers.
It is codified at 26 CFR Part 1, under RIN 1545-BR39, and was published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2024.
Accounting firms rarely file these returns themselves, but they sit directly downstream: the payee statements clients receive, gain/loss reconciliations, and return preparation all change once a broker starts issuing gross-proceeds statements for digital asset activity.
Firms serving clients who trade, hold, or transact in digital assets should confirm which clients' brokers are covered and build the new statement into existing reconciliation steps.
What this rule actually does
On December 30, 2024, the Treasury Department published a final rule in the Federal Register: Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales (89 FR 106928). The rule requires brokers that regularly provide services effectuating certain digital asset sales and exchanges to file information returns and furnish payee statements reporting gross proceeds on dispositions of digital assets they effect for customers in covered sale or exchange transactions. It is codified at 26 CFR Part 1 under RIN 1545-BR39, and it is effective February 28, 2025.
Source: Federal Register / eCFR — 89 FR 106928, Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Agency | Treasury Department |
| Federal Register citation | 89 FR 106928 |
| RIN | 1545-BR39 |
| CFR reference | 26 CFR Part 1 |
| Published | December 30, 2024 |
| Effective | February 28, 2025 |
In plain terms: a broker who regularly handles the mechanics of a digital asset sale or exchange for a customer — not merely anyone who happens to touch a transfer — now has an information-reporting duty tied to gross proceeds, similar in shape to how a securities broker reports proceeds from a stock sale. The rule requires the filing and the payee statement; on its own, it does not change how digital asset gains or losses are taxed.
The mechanics matter here because gross proceeds reporting is not the same as gain-or-loss reporting. A broker's statement under this rule tells a customer, and eventually the government, what came in on a covered sale or exchange — not what that customer's cost basis was, or whether the transaction produced a gain or a loss. That distinction is exactly the kind of detail an accounting firm has to hold onto when a client's own records and a new broker statement land on the same desk for the first time.
Who is affected
The rule is written around brokers: platforms and intermediaries that regularly provide services effectuating digital asset sales and exchanges for customers, per the Treasury Department's final rule (89 FR 106928). Accounting firms are not the direct filer in most engagements, but they sit squarely in the downstream path: any client who sells or exchanges digital assets through a covered broker should begin receiving a gross-proceeds statement tied to those transactions now that the rule is in effect.
That matters for several groups of clients accounting firms typically serve: individuals who trade digital assets through brokers or exchange platforms, businesses that accept or hold digital assets as part of ordinary operations, and investment entities whose digital asset positions run through a broker relationship. For each of them, the firm preparing the return will eventually need to reconcile whatever the client reports against what the broker's gross-proceeds statement shows — the same reconciliation firms already run for traditional securities brokerage statements, now extended to a newer asset class under 26 CFR Part 1.
The rule does not require accounting firms to register as brokers or to file the information returns directly — that duty falls on the brokers effectuating the transactions. The firm's obligation is practical rather than regulatory: know which clients will start showing up with a new statement, and have a process ready to use it once it arrives.
This also means firm size doesn't determine exposure. A solo preparer with one client who trades digital assets on the side is affected exactly as much, transaction for transaction, as a multi-partner firm with a dedicated digital-asset practice — the filing duty sits with the broker either way, and the reconciliation task on the accounting side scales with how many clients use a covered broker, not with the size of the firm itself.
What Accounting Firms should do before the date
The February 28, 2025 effective date has already passed by the time most firms read this, which makes the task less about racing a deadline and more about catching up cleanly and staying current. Three steps cover most of the work:
| Step | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Identify exposure | Flag clients who sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of digital assets through a broker relationship |
| Confirm the paper trail | Check whether each client's broker has begun issuing gross-proceeds statements under the rule |
| Reconcile before filing | Match the broker's reported gross proceeds against the client's own records before the return goes out |
None of this requires a new specialty inside the firm — it is the same reconciliation discipline already applied to traditional brokerage statements, pointed at a client population that may not have generated a matching document before. The rule requires the broker to furnish the statement; it is the firm's own engagement scope, not the rule itself, that determines how thoroughly that statement gets checked against a client's records.
Documentation is worth treating as its own step rather than an afterthought. Keeping a copy of each broker's gross-proceeds statement alongside the client's own transaction records — and noting the date it was received and reconciled — gives the firm a clean audit trail if a client's return is ever questioned. That habit costs little to build now and is far cheaper to reconstruct later.
Firms that already lean on automation for recurring, deadline-driven compliance work are extending that same discipline here: instead of standing up a one-off tracker for this rule alone, they fold digital-asset broker statements into the same monitoring they already run with US Tech Automations for other filings, so gross-proceeds reporting becomes one more item on an existing calendar rather than a new manual process built from scratch.
Operationalizing gross-proceeds tracking at volume
A firm with one or two clients who dabble in digital assets can track this by hand. A firm with dozens of clients trading across several exchanges and platforms cannot — someone has to notice when a client's broker starts sending gross-proceeds statements, match that data against what the client has already reported, and flag gaps before a return goes out. US Tech Automations' agentic workflows are built for exactly this kind of recurring, deadline-anchored monitoring: they can watch for new broker statements tied to digital asset activity, route them to the right preparer, and keep a record of what was checked and when — so staying current with the rule doesn't depend on someone remembering to check a folder.
How this fits the broader regulatory window
This rule is one entry in a larger set of federal actions moving on a similar timeline. Our compliance desk maintains a point-in-time index of 259 U.S. federal rules published July 1, 2024 – July 5, 2026 by 10 agencies governing the industries we cover, including accounting, financial services, and the broker-dealer space this rule touches. The gross-proceeds reporting rule sits alongside other Treasury Department actions in that window — some aimed at retirement plan administration, others at housing credits or lending disclosures — that together reflect the current pace of federal rulemaking touching accounting and financial-services clients.
For a firm advising clients across several of these areas, the practical takeaway is less about any single rule and more about cadence: obligations like this one arrive on overlapping but distinct effective dates, each with its own citation and its own recordkeeping expectations. Treating them as one ongoing compliance calendar, rather than a series of one-off projects, is what keeps a firm ahead of the next rule instead of catching up to it.
None of that changes the mechanics of this specific rule, but it does argue for tracking obligations by effective date and citation rather than by memory. A firm that already keeps a running list of which rule applies to which client, sourced back to its Federal Register citation, is in a far better position to absorb the next one than a firm starting from a blank page each time.
Frequently asked questions
When does the gross proceeds reporting rule take effect?
The rule is effective February 28, 2025, under the Treasury Department's final rule published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2024 (89 FR 106928).
What CFR section governs this requirement?
The requirement is codified at 26 CFR Part 1, under RIN 1545-BR39, as published in the Federal Register at 89 FR 106928.
Which brokers does the rule cover?
It covers brokers that regularly provide services effectuating digital asset sales and exchanges for customers — the parties positioned to see the sale or exchange transaction directly, not every participant that touches a digital asset transfer. A firm should confirm this status with each client's broker directly rather than assuming coverage either way.
What are covered brokers required to file?
The rule requires covered brokers to file information returns and furnish payee statements reporting gross proceeds on the digital asset dispositions they effect for customers in covered sale or exchange transactions.
Does this rule change how digital asset gains or losses are taxed?
No. The rule is an information-reporting requirement placed on brokers — it governs what gets reported and by whom, not the underlying tax treatment of a digital asset sale or exchange. Existing rules for computing gain, loss, and basis on a digital asset disposition are unaffected by this reporting rule.
Do accounting firms need to file anything under this rule themselves?
Generally no. The filing and payee-statement duties fall on the broker effectuating the transaction; the accounting firm's role is to reconcile what the client reports against the broker's gross-proceeds statement when preparing the return.
What should a firm do if a client's broker hasn't sent a gross-proceeds statement?
Ask the client to confirm directly with the broker rather than assume the transaction falls outside the rule. The filing and furnishing duties sit with the broker under 89 FR 106928, so a missing statement is a question for the broker, not evidence that no reporting duty exists.
Where can this rule be verified directly?
The primary source is the Treasury Department's final rule at 89 FR 106928, published December 30, 2024 and effective February 28, 2025, available at federalregister.gov.
Related guidance
Firms tracking several of these deadlines at once tend to benefit most from centralizing the work: US Tech Automations helps accounting and compliance teams keep obligations like this one on a single calendar instead of scattered across inboxes. See pricing.
Disclaimer
This article is for informational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client or advisory relationship. Digital asset broker reporting, gross-proceeds calculations, and how they interact with a client's existing tax position are fact-specific — consult a qualified attorney, CPA, or compliance professional about your firm's specific situation before acting on anything above.
Every date, citation, RIN, CFR reference, and figure in this post is copied verbatim from the Federal Register and eCFR as of the snapshot date. Nothing is estimated, modeled, or extrapolated. This is not legal or tax advice.
Last reviewed: July 5, 2026
Source: Federal Register / eCFR — 89 FR 106928, Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales.
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