2015 was a year the IRS would like to forget. Unfortunately, 2016 may be heading the same way. Yesterday, the IRS had a computer failure impacting multiple systems.
Those systems are still down this morning (as of 6:30am PST). The IRS currently cannot accept returns, and IRS e-services (the tool tax professionals use to pull transcripts) is also down. However, “Where’s My Refund” and IRS Direct Pay are working. More importantly, tax professionals can still submit returns to their software vendors; these returns are being held by the software companies until the IRS computers come back online.
The IRS’s statement on the failure notes,
Taxpayers can continue to prepare and file their tax returns as they normally would. Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.
As a reminder to anyone who works with a computer (which is probably everyone who reads this), back up your computer! Your computer will crash at the least opportune moment (my corollary to Murphy’s Law). Do not keep your backups on your computer! And, most importantly, periodically test your ability to restore from your backups.