118 S3660 IS: Barcode Automation for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance Efficiency Act U.S. Senate 2024-01-25 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

II118th CONGRESS2d SessionS. 3660IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATESJanuary 25, 2024Mr. Carper (for himself and Mr. Young) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on FinanceA BILLTo 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.

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.

2.

Require electronically prepared paper returns include scannable code; 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,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)(2) 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 the process of manually transcribing returns or correspondence received in a paper form. (2)

Report to Congress

Any exception to the application of subsection (a)(2) or (b) pursuant to paragraph (1) shall not take effect until after the date on which 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. (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 after December 31, 2023, and(2)any other return or correspondence received after December 31, 2025.