HR 6956

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AN ACT

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 be formatted in a manner that is compatible with the scanning technology referred to in paragraph (2), and

(2) subject to subsection (b)(1)(B), the Internal Revenue Service shall use scanning technology to convert the data included in such return 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 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 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act.

Passed the House of Representatives April 27, 2026.

Attest:

Clerk. 119th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 6956

AN ACT

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.