IRS grants one-day extension to tax filers in wake of daylong online glitch – By Susan Tompor (freep.com) / April 17 2018
ax Day is absolutely the worst day for the IRS online system to go on the fritz. But that’s the exact headache that last-minute tax filers faced Tuesday.
The IRS late Tuesday was forced to give taxpayers an extra day to file after its system stopped accepting e-filed returns for much of the day and wasn’t letting tax filers pay their bills via the Direct Pay system.
Throughout the system outage, taxpayers were still able to file their tax returns electronically through their software providers and Free File. Taxpayers using paper to file and pay their taxes at the deadline were not affected by the system issue.
Individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight April 18. Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time.
By Tuesday night, the IRS also announced that the agency was once again accepting e-filed tax returns. Taxpayers should continue to prepare and file their taxes as normal.
“This is the busiest tax day of the year, and the IRS apologizes for the inconvenience this system issue caused for taxpayers,” said Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter in a press release announcing the extension. “The IRS appreciates everyone’s patience during this period. The extra time will help taxpayers affected by this situation.”
TurboTax said it had begun submitting returns that were held up by the earlier glitch to the IRS by Tuesday evening and TurboTax was processing newly filed returns as normal.
Roughly 5 million tax filers waited until the very last day to file their returns last year. So a few million filers could have been running into all the extra technical headaches Tuesday.
Raise your hand if the IRS website glitch would have gotten you because, like me, you're a terrible procrastinator.
(It didn't get me this year bc the DH cracks the whip about things with deadlines. Perfect for me, but, boy was he steamed I left it until March.)
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) April 17, 2018
The IRS said the exact problem was not known. But it was the agency’s best understanding that the problem was “hardware related and not a cyber attack.”
TurboTax said it had uninterrupted service and was available and accepting e-filed returns.
It’s essential to file to avoid extra penalties and interest that can occur if you owe money and do not file a return.
