The record

LegislationLegislation· Apr 2026
HR 6956 Passed House — in Senate

Sponsored by Bradley Scott Schneider (D)

BARCODE Efficiency Act

Requires the to use barcodes and optical scanning to digitize paper tax returns and correspondence.

Tradeoff

Speeds up processing of paper returns by automating data entry, unless the technology is slower or less reliable than manual methods. The must report to Congress any decision to skip automation.

What's in it

See official bill text

Less than $500,000 in federal administrative costs over 2026-2031; negligible revenue effect of uncertain direction.

The less-than-$500,000 federal cost is just the administrative expense for the to implement barcode scanning and optical character recognition systems — the policy's real impact is the requirement that the convert paper returns to electronic form using these technologies if determined faster and more reliable than current methods.

H.R. 6956, BARCODE Efficiency Act · Apr 2026

The House passed this by on April 27, 2026 — sitting in the Senate.

  1. House

    Introduced

    (Jan 7, 2026)

  2. House

    Committee on Ways and Means(Jan 7, 2026)

  3. House

    The Committee on Ways and Means voted to send it to the floor

    Reported 42 - 0(Jan 14, 2026)

    Committee report H. Rept. 119-508.

  4. House

    Passage of the bill

    Passed by (Apr 27, 2026)

    No individual votes were recorded.

  5. Senate

    Received from the House

    on Finance(Apr 28, 2026)