IRS Experiencing Computer Problems--4th Update
April 17 2018 - 4:25PM
Dow Jones News
By Richard Rubin
WASHINGTON -- Some IRS computer systems are "experiencing
technical difficulties" on the deadline to pay individual income
taxes for 2017, the U.S. tax agency said Tuesday.
The problem, which didn't affect all Internal Revenue Service
systems, is believed to have been caused by a hardware failure, not
a cyberattack, according to the IRS.
The agency said taxpayers should continue filing returns as
usual. The agency is having difficulty receiving returns from tax
preparers, including large companies such as TurboTax maker Intuit
Inc. and H&R Block Inc., acting IRS commissioner David Kautter
told House subcommittees on Tuesday.
Rep. Richard Neal (D., Mass.) said the problem was related, in
part, to the transmission of direct payments to the agency.
"Tax Day is already a stressful time for millions of Americans,
even when everything goes right," said Mr. Neal, the top Democrat
on the House Ways and Means Committee. "Given this news, I hope
that the IRS will make accommodations so that every taxpayer
attempting to file today has a fair shot to do so without
penalty."
TurboTax is still receiving returns and will hold them until the
IRS is ready to accept them again, said Ashley McMahon, a company
spokeswoman. H&R Block issued a similar statement.
Most Americans have already filed their 2017 income taxes, but
millions do so as the deadline nears for filing or seeking an
extension. Last year, the IRS received about 5 million returns on
the final day of the filing season.
The deadline this year is April 17, not April 15, because of the
weekend and the Emancipation Day holiday in the District of
Columbia.
The IRS is rebooting its systems, a congressional aide said.
The agency sent an email at 8:46 a.m. ET Tuesday notifying
accountants and other tax professionals that parts of the
Modernized eFile system, which receives tax returns electronically,
were "unavailable."
The IRS has long operated aging computer systems. Agency leaders
for years have warned about potential malfunctions and said they
are guarding closely against external threats.
Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the agency's hardware
is two or three generations out of date, stressed by budget cuts
and especially vulnerable in the final week of the filing season as
millions of returns come in.
"The question was becoming not whether the system would just
shut down one day, but when," he said in an interview on Tuesday.
"Each year, there have been more glitches that get handled so
nobody sees them, but the system gets more rickety every year."
The main systems are in Martinsburg, W.Va., Mr. Koskinen said.
The first goal would be to get those computers working again, but
there are also backup systems that are tested annually, he
said.
"In the case of significant failure, you can move the system
from a major site to the backup site," said Mr. Koskinen, who left
the IRS in 2017 after his term expired. "But that doesn't
necessarily work quickly."
In a report last year, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax
Administration identified areas for improvement in the agency's
information-technology systems.
"The IRS could better protect IRS systems and data by improving
disaster recovery planning and testing, general support system
security controls, transfers of data to external partners, email
records management, and external network perimeter security," the
report said.
Congress has been steadily cutting the IRS budget or holding it
flat for the past few years, partly in a broader austerity effort
and partly in response to the agency's treatment of conservative
groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Those cuts have reduced the frequency of audits and at times
lowered the IRS's ability to respond to taxpayers' queries.
Congress just approved $320 million for the IRS to implement the
tax law that passed last year.
Write to Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 17, 2018 16:10 ET (20:10 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2024 to May 2024
Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2023 to May 2024