A 8966: Establishes a two-tenths percent tax on digital asset transactions including the sale or transfer of digital assets to fund the expansion of the substance abuse prevention and intervention program to schools in upstate New York.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 8966 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY August 13, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. STECK -- read once and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means AN ACT to amend the tax law, in relation to establishing a tax on digital asset transactions to expand the substance abuse prevention and intervention program to schools in upstate New York The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The tax law is amended by adding a new article 12-B to read 2 as follows: 3 ARTICLE 12-B 4 TAX ON DIGITAL ASSET TRANSACTIONS 5 Section 289-n. Tax on digital asset transactions. 6 § 289-n. Tax on digital asset transactions. 1. There is hereby imposed 7 an excise tax on digital asset transactions, including the sale or 8 transfer of digital assets, at a rate of two-tenths percent on and after 9 September first, two thousand twenty-five. The funding shall be used to 10 expand the substance abuse prevention and intervention program to 11 schools in upstate New York. 12 2. It shall be the duty of the person or persons making or effectuat- 13 ing the sale or transfer to pay the tax provided by this article. 14 3. For purposes of this article: 15 (a) "Digital asset" shall mean an asset that is issued, transferred, 16 or both, using distributed ledger or blockchain technology, including, 17 but not limited to, digital currencies, digital coins, digital non-fun- 18 gible tokens or other similar assets. 19 (b) "Digital currency" shall mean any type of digital unit that is 20 used as a medium of exchange or a form of digitally stored value. 21 Virtual currency shall be broadly construed to include digital units of 22 exchange that: (i) have a centralized repository or administrator; (ii) 23 are decentralized and have no centralized repository or administrator; EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD11969-04-5 
 A. 8966 2 1 or (iii) may be created or obtained by computing, manufacturing, or 2 other similar effort. 3 (c) "Distributed ledger or blockchain technology" shall mean a ledger 4 or database that stores shared state by maintaining it across a multi- 5 plicity of devices belonging to different entities and securing it 6 through a combination of cryptographic and consensus protocols, where 7 the shared state serves to authenticate, record, share, and/or synchro- 8 nize transactions involving digital assets or virtual currencies. 9 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.