Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives 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 SUB-
MITTED ON PAPER.—With respect to any Federal tax re-
turn 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 return to elec-
tronic 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 
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(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 rec-
ognition technology (or any functionally similar tech-
nology) 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 tech-
nology described in such subsection is slower or less 
reliable than— 
(A) the process of manually transcribing re-
turns or correspondence received in a paper 
form, or 
(B) any other process that the Internal Rev-
enue Service is using or would otherwise use. 
(2) REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Any exception to 
the application of subsection (a) or (b) pursuant to 
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paragraph (1) shall not take effect unless the Sec-
retary 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 de-
termination 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 Janu-
ary 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 be-
ginning more than 12 months after the date of enact-
ment of this Act. 
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Union Calendar No. 434 
119TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6956 
[Report No. 119–508] 
A BILL 
To require electronically prepared tax returns to in-
clude scannable code when submitted on paper, 
and to require the use of optical character rec-
ognition technology for paper documents received 
by the Internal Revenue Service. 
FEBRUARY 20, 2026 
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Com-
mittee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, 
and ordered to be printed 
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