IRS Gives Crypto Treasury Firms Major Tax Break on Bitcoin Holdings

This changes everything for companies like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and MARA Holdings. These firms hold billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Without this guidance, they faced massive tax bills starting in 2026—even though they never sold their crypto.

The issue started when two separate rules collided. First, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created something called the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT). This 15% tax applies to huge corporations making over $1 billion annually.

Then in December 2023, accounting rule makers decided companies must report their crypto holdings at current market value on their financial statements. Every time Bitcoin’s price moves up or down, companies have to record that change—even if they never sell.

Here’s the problem: CAMT calculates taxes based on what companies report on their financial statements. So when Bitcoin prices go up, companies would show “profits” on paper. Under the old interpretation, they’d owe 15% tax on those paper profits—despite having zero actual cash from sales.

Brett Cotler, a tax lawyer at Seward & Kissel, explained the squeeze: “A company’s going to have a tax liability but may not have the cash to pay that tax liability, so it’ll have to liquidate assets to pay it.”

Strategy owns roughly 640,031 Bitcoin, currently worth about $74 billion. The company paid $47.35 billion for these holdings, meaning they’re sitting on over $27 billion in unrealized gains.

Company chairman Michael Saylor announced the good news on October 1: “As a result of Treasury and IRS interim guidance issued yesterday, Strategy does not expect to be subject to the Corporate Alternate Minimum Tax (CAMT) due to unrealized gains on its bitcoin holdings.”

The market loved it. Strategy’s stock jumped 4.6% to $337 per share. MARA Holdings, another major Bitcoin miner and holder, also benefits from the new rules.

Strategy and Coinbase didn’t sit quietly while facing billions in potential taxes. In May 2025, they sent a joint letter to the Treasury making several arguments:

• Taxing paper profits treats crypto differently than stocks and bonds
• Companies might be forced to sell Bitcoin just to pay taxes
• U.S. firms would face disadvantages versus foreign competitors
• The tax violates constitutional principles by taxing income that doesn’t exist

Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno backed the companies, calling CAMT an “unintended tax burden” that could hurt American competitiveness.

The constitutional argument hit hard. The companies argued that letting a private accounting board (FASB) essentially decide tax policy through accounting rules violated constitutional separation of powers.

IRS Notice 2025-49 and Notice 2025-46 provide what’s called an “FVI Exclusion Option”—short for Fair Value Item Exclusion. This lets corporations ignore unrealized gains and losses on digital assets when calculating whether they owe CAMT.

The guidance is “interim,” meaning it’s not final yet. But companies can rely on it immediately for their 2025 tax returns due in 2026. Tax experts expect the IRS will eventually make these rules permanent through formal regulations.

Importantly, this isn’t just about crypto. Shehan Chandrasekera, head of tax strategy at CoinTracker, noted: “This is any company who’s making roughly a billion dollars of revenue a year.” That includes most S&P 500 companies. Crypto just became the test case because companies must mark their holdings to market value.

This guidance does more than save companies money. It removes a major roadblock to corporate Bitcoin adoption.

Before this ruling, finance executives had to worry: “If we buy Bitcoin as a treasury asset and the price goes up, we might owe huge taxes without selling anything.” That fear kept many companies on the sidelines.

The guidance also fixes an international competitiveness problem. Foreign companies don’t face similar mark-to-market rules under international accounting standards. Without this fix, U.S. companies would face tax penalties their foreign competitors avoid.

The Senate Finance Committee held hearings on October 1 to examine crypto taxation more broadly. Coinbase’s Vice President of Tax Lawrence Zlatkin testified alongside policy experts, signaling continued attention to these issues.

The September 2025 IRS guidance solves a problem that threatened to derail corporate Bitcoin adoption. Companies holding crypto as treasury assets now face the same tax treatment as those holding traditional securities. This levels the playing field, removes billions in potential liabilities, and clears the path for more corporations to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets. The guidance remains interim, but tax experts expect it will become permanent law—cementing this victory for crypto treasury firms.