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S. 452 119th Congress Senate

BARCODE Efficiency Act

Official title: A bill to require electronically prepared tax returns to include scannable code when submitted on paper, and to require the use of optical character recognitio… Show full official titleShow less

Official title: 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.

Introduced: February 6, 2025 Introduced by: Todd Young Republican · Indiana See on congress.gov
Taxation Computers and information technologyDigital mediaGovernment information and archivesTax administration and collection, taxpayers
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 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Feb 6, 2025
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Feb 6, 2025
Introduced in Senate
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What's happening now February 6, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Barcode Automation for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance Efficiency Act or the BARCODE Efficiency Act

This bill requires the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to use barcodes, barcode scanning technology, and optical character recognition (or similar) technology to digitize certain federal tax return information and correspondence, unless the technology is slower or less reliable than other IRS processes (subject to conditions). 

Specifically, the bill requires a scannable barcode on electronically-prepared federal tax returns that are printed and filed in paper format with the IRS. The bill also requires the IRS to use barcode scanning technology to convert data included on such returns into an electronic format.

Further, the bill requires the IRS to use optical character recognition (or similar) technology to transcribe federal tax returns and correspondence received by the IRS that are not prepared electronically and are received in paper format.

However, under the bill, the use of barcodes, barcode scanning technology, and optical character recognition (or similar) technology is not required if (1) such technology is slower or less reliable than manual transcription or any other IRS process, and (2) the IRS provides a report to Congress regarding the determination to not use such technology.

 Related & companion bills 1
  • HR 6956 Identical bill BARCODE Efficiency Act
 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 9

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

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 Cosponsors 1
All 1 Democratic 1
D
Warnock, Raphael G.
Georgia · Feb 6, 2025
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 452: BARCODE Efficiency Act. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-452/
MLA
"S. 452: BARCODE Efficiency Act." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-452/.
Bluebook (legal)
S. 452, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-452/.
Markdown link
[S. 452: BARCODE Efficiency Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-452/)
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