1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Free File Permanence Act of 2017 . 2. Findings The Congress finds the following: (1) The Internal Revenue Service Free File program (hereinafter referred to as the IRS Free File Program ) as established by the IRS pursuant to public rulemaking and set forth in the Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 213, Monday, November 4, 2002, pages 67247–67251, and in implementing agreements and governing rules and requirements between the IRS and the tax software and electronic industry between 2003 and 2015, has been successful and significant in the efforts of the Federal Government to increase the electronic filing of individual income tax returns of low and moderate income taxpayers. (2) By the end of the current tax return filing season more than 50,000,000 Federal individual income tax returns will have been prepared and filed electronically for free over the life of the IRS Free File program. (3) The IRS Free File program offers Federal individual income tax return preparation and electronic filing services to more than 70 percent of taxpayers, approximately 100,000,000 taxpayers at the end of the current tax filing period, with tax software and electronic filing provided at no cost to the taxpayers who use the service or to the Federal Government from tax software and electronic filing companies participating in the program. (4) By the end of the current tax return filing season, it is estimated that the IRS Free File program will have saved taxpayers approximately $1,500,000,0000 and will have saved the Federal Government about $125,000,000 in processing costs. (5) In addition to the IRS Free File Program, the Internal Revenue Service also provides Taxpayer Assistance Centers, Tax Counseling for the Elderly, and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs. Each of these programs represent important sources of taxpayer assistance and provide taxpayer services through different modalities to serve low and moderate income taxpayers. 3. Free file program (a) The Secretary of