119-s452

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 452 Introduced in Senate

    (IS) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 S. 452

 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 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

 February 6 (legislative day, February 5), 2025

Mr. Young (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 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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