The IRS has announced that they suffered a hardware failure today, and that the IRS is working to make repairs and restore service but cannot offer a firm date for when systems will be back to normal.
Some online payment systems are working: The “Where’s My Refund?” app and the FreeFile; EITC assistant and the Interactive Tax Assistant are operable such as paying by credit card are also working.
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No taxpayer data was at risk as a result of the hardware failure. The IRS did not indicate that the receipt or processing of any taxpayer returns would be significantly affected by the outage for the long term: refunds were still expected to be on schedule.
The IRS released the following statement:
The IRS experienced a hardware failure this afternoon affecting a number of tax processing systems, which are currently unavailable. 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 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. IRS.gov remains available, although a number of the services on the site are not, including Where’s My Refund.
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. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.
The IRS 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.
