Overview
- The Illinois Department of Revenue posted draft rules Wednesday that would impose a 0.2% charge on the value of covered digital‑asset transactions and require digital‑asset brokers to collect and report the levy.
- The draft treats stablecoins as taxable digital assets while excluding NFTs and tokenized securities or commodities from coverage under the state definition.
- Most decentralized finance activity would escape the tax unless a platform takes protocol fees or other 'valuable consideration,' in which case the platform can be treated as a broker and transactions become taxable.
- Cross‑chain bridging and exchange‑to‑self‑custody transfers are taxable when a broker performs the service for a fee, and remote brokers become subject to the rules if they take at least $100,000 in Illinois gross receipts from covered services.
- The rules are open for public comment through Oct. 30, 2026, but they have not been filed with the Secretary of State or submitted to JCAR and face active lawsuits and a repeal bill that leave the Jan. 1, 2027 start date legally uncertain.