IRS e-filing system still down

A computer glitch at the IRS may keep some people from filing their income taxes online Thursday. Online may end up being the only answer.

The IRS has resumed processing of 2015 federal tax returns, following a suspected hardware failure that knocked some of the tax agency’s computers out of service.

Twenty-four hours after first announcing that several of its tax processing systems and tools went down, the IRS said Thursday its programs were back up and running.

Since it takes the IRS three weeks to process returns, Marcussen said taxpayers shouldn’t worry yet. Thanks to persistent budget cuts, the agency’s efforts to modernize its technologies have been held up, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a Senate panel in February 2015.

The outage didn’t affect people who filed their returns before the problems started. “We apologize for the inconvenience this caused, and we appreciate the support and patience from taxpayers as well as our partners in the tax community and state revenue departments”. “The IRS is now in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible”, said the IRS.

The agency initially blamed a hardware failure and said 90 percent of taxpayers should still receive refunds within 21 days after filing.

The IRS has suffered numerous previous computer-related problems, ranging from failures in database controls to failing to screen workers who had access to personal data for millions of taxpayers. “The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage…as well as monitoring any follow-up issues”, the IRS said in a statement.

This week’s outage shouldn’t have a significant effect on refunds, the IRS said. Moreover, 19.5 million of these filers were awaiting refunds. Perhaps some solace comes along with the struggles but not right now; providers are unable to send returns to the government, at least for now. “The IRS is still assessing the scope of the outage”, said the agency, according to USA Today.

“We’re running applications we were running when John F. Kennedy was president”, Koskinen told lawmakers when asked why there had been a delay in sending out new tax identification numbers to victims of identity theft.