IRS shuts down tax return e-file system, computer issues blamed

In a statement on Thursday, the IRS says it had resumed processing individual and business tax returns at about 5 p.m. Eastern, a day after a “hardware failure” forced the shutdown of several tax processing systems.

Computer failures hit several U.S. Internal Revenue Service systems Wednesday in the midst of tax season, leaving the agency unable to accept some taxpayer returns. The agency still believes that about nine out of 10 taxpayers will get their refunds within 21 days. We anticipate some of the systems will remain unavailable until tomorrow.

Any taxpayers who filed their returns prior to the outage don’t need to take further action, the IRS added.

Olson reiterates that the IRS should make its plan public and seek comments from taxpayers, practitioners, and others.

The IRS reminds consumers the agency never will demand immediate payment or call about taxes owed without first having mailed a bill. E-filing is the quickest and most secure way to send your returns to the IRS, and programs like TurboTax now allow anyone to do their taxes on a computer or tablet from virtually anywhere.

In a video released last month warning about the scams, Tim Camus, deputy inspector general for the Treasury Department, said Americans have lost more than $20 million to criminals impersonating IRS workers. The problem is that, since yesterday, the system malfunction has prevented the tax return files from reaching the IRS.

FCW, a sister site to GCN, reported that the IRS indicated systems could be back online February 4, but an IRS spokesman did not immediately respond to FCW’s request for comment.

The IRS says the issue that started Wednesday was still causing problems Thursday. Officials emphasized that it’s important to note that at this time this situation appears to be a hardware failure.

“We’re going to continue to file returns as normal and there shouldn’t be anything to worry about”, Marcussen said.

That should be a huge warning sign, as the IRS doesn’t ever ask for credit card information over the phone, much less a wire transfers of pre-paid debit cards.

Not only is the IRS discouraging taxpayers from calling, the head of the IRS revealed that less than 40 percent of callers to the IRS actually received assistance.