BARCODE Efficiency Act

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6956 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6956

  To require electronically prepared tax returns to include scannable 
    code when submitted on paper, and to require the use of optical 
 character recognition technology for paper documents received by the 
                       Internal Revenue Service.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 7, 2026

  Mr. Schneider (for himself and Mr. Yakym) introduced the following 
      bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To require electronically prepared tax returns to include scannable 
    code when submitted on paper, and to require the use of optical 
 character recognition technology for paper documents received by the 
                       Internal Revenue Service.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Barcode Automation for Revenue 
Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance Efficiency Act'' or the 
``BARCODE Efficiency Act''.

SEC. 2. SCANNING AND DIGITIZATION OF TAX RETURNS AND CORRESPONDENCE.

    (a) Returns Prepared Electronically and Submitted on Paper.--With 
respect to any Federal tax return which is prepared electronically, but 
is printed and filed on paper--
            (1) such return shall bear a code which, when scanned, 
        converts the data included in such return to electronic format, 
        and
            (2) subject to subsection (b)(1)(B), the Internal Revenue 
        Service shall use barcode scanning technology to convert the 
        data included in such returns to electronic format.
    (b) Optical Character Recognition Software.--With respect to--
            (1) any Federal tax return which--
                    (A) is not prepared electronically and is printed 
                and filed on paper, or
                    (B) is described in subsection (a)(1) but, for any 
                reason, the data included in such return cannot be 
                accurately converted into electronic format, or
            (2) any correspondence which is received by the Internal 
        Revenue Service in a paper form (with the exception of any such 
        correspondence which has been received by the Internal Revenue 
        Service in electronic format),
the Internal Revenue Service shall use optical character recognition 
technology (or any functionally similar technology) to transcribe such 
return or correspondence.
    (c) Exception.--
            (1) In general.--Subsection (a) or (b) shall not apply to 
        the extent that the Secretary of the Treasury or the 
        Secretary's delegate determines that the technology described 
        in such subsection is slower or less reliable than--
                    (A) the process of manually transcribing returns or 
                correspondence received in a paper form, or
                    (B) any other process that the Internal Revenue 
                Service is using or would otherwise use.
            (2) Report to congress.--Any exception to the application 
        of subsection (a) or (b) pursuant to paragraph (1) shall not 
        take effect unless the Secretary provides a report to the 
        Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and 
        the Committee on Finance of the Senate regarding the 
        determination made by the Secretary under such paragraph within 
        30 days of such determination.
    (d) Effective Date.--This section shall apply to--
            (1) any individual income tax return (as defined in section 
        6011(e)(3)(C) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) received on 
        or after January 1 of the first calendar year beginning more 
        than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act,
            (2) any estate tax return (as described in section 6018 of 
        such Code) or gift tax return (as described in section 6019 of 
        such Code) received on or after January 1 of the first calendar 
        year beginning more than 24 months after the date of enactment 
        of this Act, and
            (3) any other return or correspondence received on or after 
        January 1 of the first calendar year beginning more than 12 
        months after the date of enactment of this Act.
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