The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday evening its tax-processing systems have suffered a hardware failure and that tax processing could be affected into Thursday.
“The IRS experienced a hardware failure this afternoon affecting a number of tax processing systems, which are currently unavailable,” said the IRS. “Several of our systems are not currently operating, including our modernized e-file system and a number of other related systems. The IRS is currently in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible. We anticipate some of the systems will remain unavailable until tomorrow.”
The IRS added that it remains in close contact with e-file software transmitters and the tax community during this period.
“A number of taxpayer and tax practitioner tools are unavailable,” the
However, the IRS noted that taxpayers can continue to prepare and file their tax returns as they normally would. “Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns,” said the IRS. “Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.”
As of Wednesday night, the IRS said it is still assessing the scope of the outage. “At this time, the IRS does not anticipate major refund disruptions; we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days.”
