IRS Statement on System Outage

The IRS announced it resumed processing individual and business tax returns at approximately 5 p.m. Thursday following resolution of its system outage. Many of the tools and applications came up earlier on Thursday morning, including “Where’s My Refund” on IRS.gov.

“IRS teams worked throughout the night and around the clock on this system outage,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “Our processing systems are back in business. Taxpayers should see little, if any, impact on their tax returns or refunds. 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 emphasized that taxpayers do not need to take any additional steps or action due to the outage, including people who filed just before or during the outage. Throughout this period, taxpayers were able to continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies have already started sending these tax returns into the IRS.

Taxpayers who have received a specific refund date from the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on IRS.gov should not be affected by the outage. The IRS reminds taxpayers that many variables factor into processing of tax refunds, including fraud prevention efforts, but we continue to anticipate that nine out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days after being accepted by the IRS. In addition, the IRS reminds taxpayers that IRS.gov remains the best place to check for information on refunds. Additional information is available at: https://www.irs.gov/Refunds/What-to-Expect-for-Refunds-This-Year

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday as well as monitoring any follow-up issues.  It's important to note that at this time this situation appears to be a hardware failure. 

IRS SYSTEM UPDATE

The IRS released the following update today regarding their systems:

IRS teams continued working throughout the night and this morning on the system outage, and many of our tools and applications came back up this morning, including “Where’s My Refund” on IRS.gov. We are continuing our work and analysis of our return processing system; we hope to have that back up again running at some point today. We will provide a further update later today.

While the e-file system for individual and business returns remains unavailable, the IRS reminds taxpayers they can still prepare and file 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.

In addition, we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days.

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday.  It's important to note that this situation appears to be a hardware failure and nothing else. There is no indication that any external factors had any role in this incident.

Urgent Update on IRS Systems

PLEASE NOTE: CROSSLINK IS CONTINUING TO TAKE RETURNS and will submit them to the IRS once their systems come back online. See the Updated IRS statement below:

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IRS Statement:

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.
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IRS Experiencing Heavy Use of their “Where’s My Refund?” Tool

Due to the heavy volume of refund inquiries that the IRS is presently experiencing and expects to continue experiencing for the next couple of weeks, access to the “Where’s My Refund?” application may be limited during certain times of the day.

In order to avoid any disruptions in the use of “Where’s My Refund?”, the IRS strongly suggests that taxpayers only check on the status of their refunds once a day. The IRS systems are only updated once a day (usually at night). Therefore the earliest the status of a refund would change after a taxpayer has checked it, is the next day.

Also, to reduce system delays in checking on the status of a refund, the best time to access “Where’s My Refund?” is in the evening or on weekends.

As a reminder the expectation of when the IRS will send a refund to the taxpayer is within 21 days from the time the return has been accepted. The same information that appears on “Where’s My Refund?” will be given to the taxpayer if they call the IRS Help Desk.

Remember, here is how the “Where’s My Refund?” tool works this filing season:

• The refund status will be presented by way of a status bar as follows:
• Return Received - From the time the return is received until the refund has been approved the message will be that the return is being processed and that the refund will be sent in less than 21 days.
• Refund Approved – A date the refund is scheduled to be sent to the bank will be given.
• Refund Sent – The date the refund was sent.
• Taxpayer will be able to see what the status of the processing of their return is within 24 hours after their return has been accepted.

See the IRS Alert Statement on “Where’s My Refund?” on the IRS website for more information.