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Today on the Daily Scoop Podcast from the Scoop News Group, the House passes two bills to modernize operations at the irs, and the Department of Labor is aiming to launch its AI workforce hub in the coming months. It's Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Welcome to the Daily Scoop Podcast where you'll hear the latest news and trends facing government leaders. I'm the host of the Daily Scoop Podcast, Matt Bracken filling in for Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for joining me. Let's dive into the day's top headlines. Less than two weeks after the IRS wrapped what its CEO called the most successful filing season in history, the House passed a pair of bills aimed at giving the tax agency better tech for its next go round. The lower chamber cleared the Barcode Efficiency act and the Taxpayer Experience Improvement act this week, teeing up the modernization focused pieces of legislation for the Senate. The Barcode Efficiency act would require tax returns that are prepared electronically to include a scannable code when they are submitted on paper. The bill also calls for the use of optical character recognition technology when the IRS receives paper documents. Millions of Americans still use paper returns. Processing those returns currently requires IRS employees to manually transcribe the data into agency systems line by line. Scanning technology has been recommended by the Government Accountability Office and the National Taxpayer Advocate, and the bill is supported by the National Taxpayers Union and the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights. The Taxpayer Experience Improvement act, meanwhile, would provide more transparency into IRS operations through the creation of a real time dashboard that informs taxpayers about backlogs, wait times and more. The legislation, which does not have a Senate counterpart, would also push the IRS to implement customer callback technology. The dashboard would post call volumes and promote the availability of the callback service. Congressman Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the legislation will push the IRS to be, quote, unquote, an agency more worthy of the taxpayers it serves and and more responsive to their needs. In other news, the Department of Labor aims to unveil its AI Workforce hub in the coming months, an agency official told Fed Scoop Tuesday. The concept of a labor managed AI workforce hub was first introduced in President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan last July. The portal will feature recurring analyses and actionable insights meant to inform workforce and education policy. Per the plan, DOL has been assigned the job of leading a collaborative effort on the hub's production with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Commerce's Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic analysis. Taylor Stockton, DOL's chief innovation officer, said that recruiting data rich private sector partners has also been a top priority. Much of the data that will come from industry hasn't been shared publicly before, according to Stockton. If all goes as planned with DOL's One Stop Shop for government and industry data, Stockton believes the end result will be a hub that serves as the central source of truth for how AI is impacting work. For more news at the intersection of the federal government and technology, visit fedscoop.com thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Daily Scoop Podcast, available on all podcast platforms. If you've already rated the podcast on your platform of choice, thank you. High ratings and good reviews of the show help more people find it. The Daily Scoop Podcast is a production of the Scoop News Group in Washington, dc. Adam Butler and Carlin Fisher help put this show together and the entire Scoop News Group team contributes. We'll be back tomorrow with more top headlines. Until then, I'm your host Matt Bracken.