The online filing system used by Americans to submit tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service experienced technical difficulties Tuesday, the last day to meet the agency’s deadline.
In particular, the “Direct Pay” service that allows taxpayers to make payments online, using their bank accounts, was down as of noon eastern time. “This service is temporarily unavailable,” the page titled “unplannedOutagePage” reads. “We are working to resolve the issue. Please come back later and try again.”
The page added that despite the lack of the Direct Pay service, “[Y]our tax payment is due.”
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IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter was aware of the technical issues, acknowledging them at a House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday.
“On my way over here this morning, I was told a number of systems are down at the moment,” Kautter told lawmakers, as reported by the Washington Post. “We are working to resolve the issue and taxpayers should continue to file as they normally would.”
To solve the issue ahead of the deadline, the IRS will attempt to do a “hard reboot” of the online platform, according to a congressional official who spoke to the Post.
