WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) — The Internal Revenue Service’s website had serious problems Wednesday, leaving much of the site down and many of tax-processing systems unusable, the agency said.
The IRS blamed “hardware failure” on the problem and said in a statement it didn’t know when services –like the popular electronic filing system — would be back online. The agency said it didn’t believe refunds would be affected.
“The IRS is still assessing the scope of the outage,” the agency said in its statement. “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.
“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.”
No taxpayer data is at risk, the agency said, and refunds were expected to remain on schedule.
