Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) delivered the following statement at a Committee markup of the BARCODE Efficiency Act (H.R. 6956), the Ensuring Children Receive Support Act (H.R. 6903), the NO BOSS Act (H.R. 6431), and the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act (H.R. 6945):
“Our first bill we will consider today, the BARCODE Efficiency Act, uses modern technology to speed up IRS processing of tax returns. With just two weeks before the opening of the 2026 tax filing season, taxpayers will unfortunately experience the dire need for modernisation efforts at the IRS, especially those who file using paper forms. Slow processing should not be the punishment for filing on paper. This bill from Representatives Yakym and Schneider speeds up IRS processing of tax returns that are prepared digitally but filed on paper – which will in turn, cut down on delays in Americans receiving their tax refunds.
“The IRS must be focused on quickly processing returns this tax filing season. Workers and families are expecting the largest tax refunds in history, thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, and need them quickly.
“The next set of three bills we will consider improve the health and well-being of children and families. First, by ensuring parents meet their child support obligations, second, by creating new pathways for employment for unemployed workers, and third, by preserving access to critical care for women and children.
“The first bill toughens enforcement on parents who owe thousands in back child support payments. Under current law, non-custodial parents who owe at least twenty-five hundred dollars in late child support can have their passports either restricted or denied for renewal by the State Department. Parents who skip paying child support ought to focus on paying what it is owed before going on an international vacation. That’s why this bill from Representatives Van Duyne and Panetta strengthens the passport penalty to full revocation for any delinquent, non-custodial parent.
“Our next bill helps more unemployed Americans create their own job by starting their own small business. The Self-Employment Assistance program already provides Americans with a pathway to build a business, while receiving an allowance identical to a regular weekly unemployment benefit. These funds give unemployed individuals the chance to transform unemployment from a setback into an opportunity. More Americans should have that same chance. The NO BOSS Act introduced by Representative Carey doubles the participation cap and makes programmatic changes, so more unemployed Americans can become their own boss.
“Finally, the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act led by Representatives Fischbach and Tenney maintains access to maternal care delivered at pregnancy resource centers. In 2023, the Biden Administration proposed an overreaching regulation that would have forbid pregnancy resource centers from receiving TANF dollars. The bipartisan law that created TANF explicitly limits the ability of the bureaucracy to issue such regulations for the TANF program. The Biden Administration’s actions were a deliberate attempt to sidestep the law to achieve a partisan, political agenda by targeting pregnancy centers.
“This Committee successfully fought this maneuver and the rule was withdrawn in the final days of the Biden administration. But it is important we make sure pregnancy resource centers do not come under such threat again from a future Administration. These centers are one of the few places women can get the resources they need for maternal care at no cost to them: diapers, prenatal vitamins, transportation, parenting classes, to name just a few. In 2024 alone, they served over two million women at more than twenty-seven hundred centers.
“This bill ensures pregnant women and mothers have more control and more choice over their own health. To that end, this bill simply clarifies pregnancy resource centers are an allowable use of TANF funds by states. Let’s be clear: if the Biden Administration had implemented this rule, women in America would have had less access to maternal care – not more.
“I want to thank my colleagues for their leadership on these bills before us today.”
