For many people the midnight race to the post office on April 15th has been replaced by a few hours in front of a flickering computer screen and some mouse clicks. Electronic filing of Federal Taxes is fast becoming the norm. Especially for people are anticipating a refund from the government. Today that fast track to get your money back has been stalled by what the Internal Revenue Service is calling a hardware failure.

The IRS released this statement about the situation.

The IRS experienced a hardware failure this afternoon affecting a number of tax processing systems, which are currently unavailable. 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.

 

The IRS remains in close contact with e-file software transmitters and the tax community during this period.

A number of taxpayer and tax practitioner tools are unavailable. IRS.gov remains available, although a number of the services on the site are not, including Where’s My Refund.

 

Taxpayers can continue to prepare and file their tax returns as they normally would. Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.

 

The IRS is still assessing the scope of the outage. At this time, the IRS does not anticipate major refund disruptions; we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days.

The two systems that have been affected by this hardware failure are the electronic filing system and the " Wheres My Refund" service.  Officials with the I.R.S. hope to have both of these systems fully operational by later today.

This system glitch does not affect your ability to file your taxes with a "middle man" company. Many tax preparation services offer electronic filing as part of their service and while they are affected by the delay this should not prevent you from completing your business with the tax professional of your choice.

While this hardware failure might cause a slight delay officials with the I.R.S. are still hopeful that most refunds from electronic filing can be processed within a three week window.

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