[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1796 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1796

   To make permanent the Internal Revenue Service Free File program.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            November 3, 2011

Mr. Pryor (for himself and Mr. Isakson) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To make permanent the Internal Revenue Service Free File program.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Free File Program Act of 2011''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Internal Revenue Service (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 2002 and 
        2011, 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 30,000,000 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 $1,000,000,000 and will have saved the 
        Federal Government hundreds of millions of dollars.

SEC. 3. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE FREE FILE PROGRAM.

    (a) The Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secretary's delegate, is 
authorized and directed to continue to operate the Internal Revenue 
Service (IRS) Free File program as established by the IRS in the public 
rulemaking of November 4, 2002, and subsequent agreements and governing 
rules.
    (b) The IRS Free File program shall continue to provide free online 
individual income tax preparation and electronic filing services to the 
70 percent of taxpayers with the lowest income, determined using prior 
year taxpayer adjusted gross income. The number of taxpayers receiving 
such services each year shall be adjusted for each filing season based 
on taxpayer population and income changes, but the percentage specified 
in the preceding sentence shall not change.
    (c) The Internal Revenue Service shall continue to work 
cooperatively with the private sector through the Free File Alliance to 
provide free individual income tax preparation and electronic filing 
services and shall not compete with the private sector in providing 
these services to taxpayers, nor shall such Service acquire, develop, 
or deploy enabling systems to duplicate or replace private tax 
preparation services.
    (d) The Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secretary's delegate, 
shall not establish, develop, sponsor, acquire, or make available 
individual income tax preparation software or electronic filing 
services except through the IRS Free File program and the Internal 
Revenue Service's Taxpayer Assistance Centers, Tax Counseling for the 
Elderly, and volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) programs.
                                 <all>