Official status page, if anyone wants to keep an eye on it: <a href="https://www.marketingexpress.irs.gov/systems-status/system-status-mef/modernized-efile-mef-operational-status" rel="nofollow">https://www.marketingexpress.irs.gov/systems-status/system-s...</a>
I feel like this is a nothingburger hyped up to induce panic. I filled out my return today, on the last day as always, clicked some buttons, and shat out a return into the ether. The IRS doesn't seem to want it, but HR Block has it and will give it to them eventually. My work here is done, it's time for happy hour.
With recent concern about malicious entities in the press, I'll pose this question: "On its own, or was it 'helped'?"<p>Separately, it's worth noting the following quoted bit of the article. These cuts have included investigators; at the same time, statistics indicate that each additional investigator brings in 10x the cost of their job, in increased "recovered" revenue, i.e. collection of taxes owed.<p>The IRS isn't "just incompetent". It's been under political and funding attack, for years, now.<p><i>Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) noted the agency’s budget has been repeatedly cut in recent years, which he said he believes could have contributed to the problems.<p>“While we don’t yet know what has caused this systems failure, the lack of Republican funding for the IRS to serve taxpayers will only compound the issue. Americans should not be punished for being unable to file their tax returns or pay their tax bills today,” said Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the IRS.<p>The IRS has faced steady budget cuts for nearly a decade, with its staff size falling by about 18,000 employees from 2010 to 2017 and a recent report showing it can answer only about 60 percent of calls from tax filers.</i>
How do you design a system that is barely used most of the year and then experiences one huge spike only one day? Do they have tons of capacity sitting around most of the year?
This is one of several reasons why I file on paper.<p>I caught a glimpse of how the sausages were made once, thanks to family connections. That was enough. It's completely reasonable to assume that the IRS is operating on technology that is at least 5 years out of date, and possibly as much as 40. They have just barely enough resources to serve their overall departmental mandate.<p>This is only partially on the IRS itself, and also on the politically motivated processes that intentionally underfund it, especially with regard to taxpayer assistance, guidance, or convenience. If not this year, next year, and if not then, call the office of the nearest archdiocese to investigate out who was responsible for the miracle of the unborked servers, and the miracle of the balancing of the surge traffic.
Oddly coincidental because I just spent all last night reading about distributed computing for Uber's payment system.<p>I can't imagine the government system has more load than Uber.
Oh, great. I'm trying to file today online, though I need to look for a free service and redo all the paperwork because I'm broke and can't afford the filing fee. And now this.<p>Can't they just announce an extension and give everyone extra time? That wouldn't solve all my problems, but it would take some pressure off.<p>This is stupid. Just tell people the deadline is extended.<p>But they aren't likely to do that.
This is a bit of a disaster. Not surprising, though. Lots of US government electronic services have gone unmaintained under the Trump admin. The website for servicing defaulted student loans has also been completely broken for months: <a href="https://myeddebt.ed.gov/borrower/" rel="nofollow">https://myeddebt.ed.gov/borrower/</a>
Why does the IRS not distribute the tax-filing workload across the whole year? Having everyone trying to complete their taxes on the same day seems wildly inefficient and wasteful.