H.R. 6956 · 119th Congress
Barcode Automation for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance Efficiency Act
Key: what the circles and colors mean
Each circle is a bill. The ring fills as it moves through Congress:
Under the number: the Yea · Nay count of its final (or latest) recorded vote. On a member's page, the small badge is how that member voted: Y Yea / Aye, N Nay / No, P Present, – Not voting.
Gold and violet are only for Yea and Nay; they never mean a party. A member's party is the letter on their photo.
Passed the House without a recorded vote. It passed by voice vote or unanimous consent, which don't record how each member voted. Its text can still change before it becomes law.
D
SchneiderSponsor1 cosponsor · 1 R
1 signed on when it was introduced; the rest joined later. Cosponsors who withdrew aren't shown.
- House Introduced Jan 7, 2026
- House Passed Apr 27, 2026
Barcode Automation for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance Efficiency Act or the BARCODE Efficiency Act
What it does: CRS summary · Introduced in House · Jan 7, 2026
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.
Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov
About this bill and sources
Official title: BARCODE Efficiency Act
Latest action (Apr 28, 2026): Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Policy area: Taxation · Origin: House · Introduced: Jan 7, 2026
Official page on Congress.gov · Bill text (GovInfo) · Status record (XML)
- House Introduced Jan 7, 2026
- House Passed Apr 27, 2026
No recorded floor vote found.