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

Floor Speech

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Mr. YAKYM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 6956, the BARCODE Efficiency Act. I am proud to co-lead this act with my friend from Illinois (Mr. Schneider).

This is a simple but powerful bill that will make tax return processing faster, more accurate, and more efficient. E-filing taxes is becoming even more common. In 2009, two-thirds of taxpayers e-filed their returns. By 2015, it was up to 85 percent. Last year, 94 percent of taxpayers e-filed their returns. That remaining 6 percent still accounts for 10 million tax returns.

There are good reasons to file a paper return. I actually found myself in such a position last year. After I electronically filed my taxes, as most taxpayers do, the IRS continued to kick back my return, trying to convince me that I owed the IRS less money than I actually did.

We reran the numbers time and time again, but we still came up with the same results. We had a few choices at this point. We could either file the return, as the IRS suggested, and risk later on owing a lot of money in penalties and interest and things like that, or we could call them up and get into an argument with somebody at the IRS, or we could just simply print it off and file the return. That is exactly what we chose to do.

The problem is once we file that return, and my return this last year was 202 pages, there is someone at the IRS who actually manually enters in every single digit on all 202 pages. Just imagine the problems that could create, Mr. Speaker. If someone transposes a number, then all of a sudden, you have an inaccurate return and the IRS can later come after you for an audit. Or, Mr. Speaker, you may have substantial delays in receiving your refund because of the amount of time it takes to manually key in all that data. It is just simply a waste of time and a waste of resources.

There are better ways of handling that, and, frankly, I think it is time for the IRS to come into the 21st century. That is why my colleague, Mr. Schneider, and I have introduced the bipartisan BARCODE Efficiency Act. This would require that the IRS increase its usage of scanning technology, particularly for paper or handwritten returns. No more manual entry would be needed or required. This will certainly complement efforts already underway by the Trump administration to phase out the use of paper and to adopt scanning technology. Scanning technology has been recommended by the taxpayer advocate as well as the GAO, and it has been used by State tax agencies for years.

Paper returns will still be necessary at times, but we can do better, Mr. Speaker, because there is proven commercially available technology that can end the hand entry of tax returns. It will increase the speed, the efficiency, and the accuracy of processing. It will get refunds out the door quicker so Hoosiers, whom I serve, can get their money back faster.

Again, quite simply, it is time for the IRS to come into the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague across the aisle Mr. Schneider for his great work in getting this bill introduced. I would also like to thank Chairman Smith and Chairman Schweikert for their partnership as well as Senators Young and Warnock.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan commonsense bill.

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