IRS Systems Are Up And Running, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Says

WASHINGTON, DC — Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says all IRS systems are up and running and millions of taxpayers have until midnight Wednesday to file and pay their taxes.

Tuesday was the actual deadline but the system that allowed people to submit their returns online failed. IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter told lawmakers that day that numerous systems were down. The "Direct Pay With Bank Account" page on the IRS website — which allows taxpayers to pay their taxes — had a simple message for citizens on Tuesday: "Alert: This service is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

The direct pay option is one of several options available to citizens. But it's only one of a few that doesn't hit taxpayers with extra fees.

A glitch on the IRS’ servers temporarily broke parts of its online payment and refund system, Vox reported. The site told readers the online filing system was down as part of a “planned outage.” The error message added that the site would be return to operations either in September 2016 or in December 9999.

It was repaired on Tuesday evening, but the IRS opted to give taxpayers an extra day to file.

“Individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight on Wednesday, April 18. Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time,” the IRS said in a statement.

Those who are unable to file on Wednesday may want to file for an automatic six-month tax extension. The new deadline would be Oct. 15.

Just spoke with the team @IRSnews. All systems are up and running. Back log processed. Taxpayers have until today at midnight to file and pay taxes.
— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) April 18, 2018

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