Did you fail to make the midnight deadline to file your taxes for 2017, and pay the federal government for the pleasure of wasting your hard-earned money in ways you’d never anticipate? Well, you’re in luck, because you have an extra day, thanks to that same federal government’s complete lack of foresight.
Just as millions of Americans were logging on to e-fail their 1040s, the IRS e-file website — built, apparently, without regard to its actual purpose or without the capacity to handle a totally expected flood of users trying to file ahead of the April 15 midnight deadline — melted down and was unavailable most of the day.
According to NBC News, the site didn’t come back online until after close of business — at 5:05pm EST.
While tax filers could sill manage to send the IRS their paperwork, the IRS wasn’t accepting the most important thing: the payment. “The outage affected the “Direct Pay” link, a free service for paying taxes via bank accounts, and the “Payment Plan” page, where filers can pay their tax bill in installments,” NBC reported.
Americans have until midnight Wednesday night to file their completed tax returns, with payment, or file for an extension, which will put the deadline for filing in early October. Business taxes are typically due the day after personal income taxes. Those can now be filed all the way up until midnight Thursday.