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posted by chromas on Wednesday April 18 2018, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the something-something-death-and-taxes dept.

C|net reports:

If you were waiting until the last minute to pay your taxes and were depending on IRS.gov to make a payment from your checking account, there's some bad news.

For most of Tuesday, the last day to file taxes, the Direct Pay section of the Internal Revenue Service's website wasn't working. Instead, people planning to pay electronically saw a message reading, "This service is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Now there's good news -- of sorts. The site is working once again. And Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters Tuesday that Americans who couldn't pay their taxes because of the outage will receive an extension. The IRS later said that individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight on Wednesday, April 18. Taxpayers need do nothing to qualify for the extra time.

[...] Direct Pay is a service that lets taxpayers pay their estimated taxes directly via a bank account, free of charge. Paying with a credit card through the IRS site costs around 2 percent of the payment amount, starting at $2.50.

[...] While the problem persisted, both vendors had continued to accept electronic returns. At the time, an H&R Block spokesperson said, "We are encouraging taxpayers to continue to use our retail services or our do-it-yourself products as they normally would."

It was a similar story at TurboTax. "For those that prepared and filed their taxes with TurboTax earlier today, TurboTax is now submitting those returns to the IRS and is currently processing newly filed returns as normal," an Intuit spokesperson said after the government restored functionality to the IRS site.

From The Washington Post:

A computer glitch at the IRS knocked offline the agency's ability to process many tax returns filed electronically, a stunning breakdown that left agency officials flummoxed and millions of Americans bewildered. Senior government officials were at a loss to explain what happened, even as close to 5 million Americans were expected to try to file their taxes before the midnight deadline.

IRS officials did not specify what went wrong, saying only that they would undertake a "hard reboot" of their systems. By late Tuesday, the IRS said that its systems were back online and that taxpayers could proceed to file returns through the end of Wednesday. Taxes had been due on Tuesday. (That was two days later than the usual due date, April 15, which fell on a Sunday. Monday was Emancipation Day, a holiday in the District.)

[...] An IRS spokeswoman said that "all indications point to this being hardware-related. We're aware of no other external issues."

[...] It wasn't immediately clear how many people were affected or could take advantage of the one-day delay in the filing deadline, but IRS officials said taxpayers wouldn't have to do anything special to take advantage of the postponement. Many filers who use online tax preparation software, such as TurboTax or H&R Block, or pay their taxes directly to the IRS online were affected. The vast majority of tax preparers, such as accountants, are required to file taxes electronically.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:02AM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:02AM (#668966) Journal

    People are forced to sell their homes and move into tiny houses or rentals that are still cheaper, unless they have a wealthy relative who takes care of these expenses.

    And what is the problem with that? Save more money when you're younger, if you don't want to do that. It is a terrible use of government to subsidize life style choices.

  • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:57AM (3 children)

    by lentilla (1770) on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:57AM (#668996)

    And what is the problem with that?

    Practically speaking, the problem is two-fold. Governments have a bad habit of changing the rules, and your environment doesn't necessarily stay static.

    Say I retired in 1998 and my house was worth $400,000. It's 2018 and my house is worth $1,600,000. My income hasn't increased... the house hasn't improved... but property tax has quadrupled.

    That's the problem. If you're on the move and earning money you might be able to roll with the flow. Older people are not fast and flexible - that's a simple fact of life. If you just want to live your life out in peace it can become difficult.

    subsidize life style choices.

    I don't disagree with you, I just question how you can foretell the future. Ironically, the prevailing method used by fiscally wise people where I live; wanting to hedge their future; is to buy investment properties. Which of course exacerbates the problem.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:05AM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:05AM (#668997) Journal

      Say I retired in 1998 and my house was worth $400,000. It's 2018 and my house is worth $1,600,000. My income hasn't increased... the house hasn't improved... but property tax has quadrupled.

      That's the problem. If you're on the move and earning money you might be able to roll with the flow. Older people are not fast and flexible - that's a simple fact of life. If you just want to live your life out in peace it can become difficult.

      Why is the obvious solution, sell the house, supposed to be a bad choice? You can buy a far cheaper house elsewhere and then have a huge cushion.

      Ironically, the prevailing method used by fiscally wise people where I live; wanting to hedge their future; is to buy investment properties. Which of course exacerbates the problem.

      I bet that worked well for them in 2008.

      I don't disagree with you, I just question how you can foretell the future.

      Because one needs to be accurate in foretelling the future in order to know that saving more money is going to help? I'm not foretelling anything. Having trouble with property tax is only one of many potential negative consequences of not saving money.

      • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:51AM (1 child)

        by lentilla (1770) on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:51AM (#669019)

        Why is the obvious solution, sell the house, supposed to be a bad choice?

        Because I want to live in my own house. You do understand that people like to live in the house and the community that they built, without undue influence, right?

        You mentioned 2008 and "saving more money". Saving money is not the point of life. There has to be a balance. That's why I brought up foretelling the future - nobody knows the future and I tried valiantly to demonstrate why "accura[cy] in foretelling the future" is fraught with mis-steps.

        When I've built my home, built my community, and done everything to the best of my ability, do I not deserve similar protection from parasites that our young are afforded?

        You can buy a far cheaper house elsewhere

        Not anywhere where your friends and family can drive within a day.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 19 2018, @01:56PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 19 2018, @01:56PM (#669092) Journal

          Because I want to live in my own house. You do understand that people like to live in the house and the community that they built, without undue influence, right?

          I imagine you also would like to not grow old. We don't always get what we want, much less get it without consequence. What puzzles me is why the rest of us are supposed to be concerned because someone might be forced to move out of their extremely valuable home due to property tax? That's a situation I imagine the youth of today would love to have.