Legislative update: House passes seven bills aimed at providing taxpayer assistance and improving tax administration
Bills would provide targeted tax relief and tax administration changes
april 28, 2026
The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday passed seven bipartisan bills aimed at providing taxpayer assistance and improving tax administration. Read a Ways and Means Committee release (April 28, 2026)
- H.R. 7959, the “IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act,” would strengthen the IRS Whistleblower Program by improving whistleblower protections, ensuring fairer judicial review, and incentivizing timely program administration.
- H.R. 7971, the “Taxpayer Experience Improvement Act,” would require the IRS to establish a dashboard to inform taxpayers of backlogs and wait times, and to expand electronic access to information about returns and refunds, callback technology, and online accounts.
- H.R. 2347, the “Survivor Justice Tax Prevention Act,” would allow taxpayers to exclude damages (other than punitive damages) received on account of any sexual act or sexual contact from taxable income.
- H.R. 5366, the “Doug LaMalfa Federal Disaster Tax Relief Certainty Act,” would allow taxpayers to deduct disaster-related losses and exclude wildfire compensatory payments from taxable income.
- H.R. 6495, the “Taxpayer Notification and Privacy Act,” would require the IRS to specify in a notice to a taxpayer each item of information sought from a third party when (1) the IRS has not previously requested such information from the taxpayer, and (2) the taxpayer can reasonably provide such information.
- H.R. 6956, the “BARCODE Efficiency Act,” would mandate the use of barcodes on tax returns and related technology to digitize and retrieve certain federal tax return information.
- H.R. 5334, the “SEED Act,” would make early childhood educators eligible for the classroom supplies tax deduction.
The bills will now be sent to the Senate for consideration.