II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 452
To require electronically prepared tax returns to include scannable code when
submitted on paper, and to require the use of optical character recogni-
tion technology for paper documents received by the Internal Revenue
Service.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY6 (legislative day, FEBRUARY5), 2025
Mr. Y
OUNG(for himself and Mr. WARNOCK) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
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 Serv-
ice.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Barcode Automation 4
for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and En-5
hance Efficiency Act’’ or the ‘‘BARCODE Efficiency 6
Act’’. 7
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•S 452 IS
SEC. 2. SCANNING AND DIGITIZATION OF TAX RETURNS 1
AND CORRESPONDENCE. 2
(a) R
ETURNSPREPAREDELECTRONICALLY AND 3
S
UBMITTED ONPAPER.—With respect to any Federal tax 4
return which is prepared electronically, but is printed and 5
filed on paper— 6
(1) such return shall bear a code which, when 7
scanned, converts the data included in such return 8
to electronic format, and 9
(2) subject to subsection (b)(1)(B), the Internal 10
Revenue Service shall use barcode scanning tech-11
nology to convert the data included in such returns 12
to electronic format. 13
(b) O
PTICALCHARACTER RECOGNITION SOFT-14
WARE.—With respect to— 15
(1) any Federal tax return which— 16
(A) is not prepared electronically and is 17
printed and filed on paper, or 18
(B) is described in subsection (a)(1) but, 19
for any reason, the data included in such return 20
cannot be accurately converted into electronic 21
format, or 22
(2) any correspondence which is received by the 23
Internal Revenue Service in a paper form (with the 24
exception of any such correspondence which has 25
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•S 452 IS
been received by the Internal Revenue Service in 1
electronic format), 2
the Internal Revenue Service shall use optical character 3
recognition technology (or any functionally similar tech-4
nology) to transcribe such return or correspondence. 5
(c) E
XCEPTION.— 6
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Subsection (a) or (b) shall 7
not apply to the extent that the Secretary of the 8
Treasury or the Secretary’s delegate determines that 9
the technology described in such subsection is slower 10
or less reliable than— 11
(A) the process of manually transcribing 12
returns or correspondence received in a paper 13
form, or 14
(B) any other process that the Internal 15
Revenue Service is using or would otherwise 16
use. 17
(2) R
EPORT TO CONGRESS .—Any exception to 18
the application of subsection (a) or (b) pursuant to 19
paragraph (1) shall not take effect unless the Sec-20
retary provides a report to the Committee on Ways 21
and Means of the House of Representatives and the 22
Committee on Finance of the Senate regarding the 23
determination made by the Secretary under such 24
paragraph within 30 days of such determination. 25
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•S 452 IS
(d) EFFECTIVEDATE.—This section shall apply to— 1
(1) any individual income tax return (as defined 2
in section 6011(e)(3)(C) of the Internal Revenue 3
Code of 1986) received on or after January 1 of the 4
first calendar year beginning more than 180 days 5
after the date of enactment of this Act, 6
(2) any estate tax return (as described in sec-7
tion 6018 of such Code) or gift tax return (as de-8
scribed in section 6019 of such Code) received on or 9
after January 1 of the first calendar year beginning 10
more than 24 months after the date of enactment of 11
this Act, and 12
(3) any other return or correspondence received 13
on or after January 1 of the first calendar year be-14
ginning more than 12 months after the date of en-15
actment of this Act. 16
Æ
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