Business
IRS systems hit with outage as tax season starts
A hardware system failure brought down many IRS.gov features and nixed the plans of anyone e-filing. The IRS is assessing the situation.
Internal Revenue Service technology systems have stumbled out of gate just as tax filing season has started.
In a statement on its Web site, the IRS said that it was hit with a hardware failure on Wednesday that crippled its systems.
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.
Meanwhile, the IRS said it remains in contact with e-file software transmitters during the outage. In addition, IRS.gov is lacking several services during the outage including the Where's My Refund feature.
The IRS said it is assessing the scope of the outage and doesn't expect delays in refunds.
Assuming the IRS can get its systems running fairly quickly, the hit to taxpayers should be minimal. After all, most of us are waiting for W-2s, 1099s and all of those other fun forms we need.