So Many People Did Taxes Last Minute That It Basically Killed The IRS Filing System

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If you haven’t heard, today is Tax Day 2018, and of all days, the IRS electronic filing system failed.

If you’re one of those people who decided to wait until the last minute to do your taxes, you’re probably freaking out right now. We imagine that even your eyeballs are sweating from the stress. And honestly, yeah, you could call that karma for procrastinating, but we’re not here to berate you. We’re here to answer your questions, friends!

So, what’s the deal on the IRS website debacle? This morning, the Acting IRS Commissioner David J. Kautter told the House Oversight Committee that parts of the system were experiencing failure to load or process.

“On my way over here this morning, I was told a number of systems are unavailable at the moment,” Kautter said. “We are working to resolve the issue and taxpayers should continue to file their returns as they normally would.”

The big question: How are taxpayers supposed to file their returns if they can’t load the page? Awkward. There is some hope that your taxes could be completed today, though. A congressional official told The Washington Post that the IRS is going to attempt a “hard reboot” in order to fix the issue. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s worth a try.

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Why did the system fail? Neither the IRS nor any lawmakers can say exactly, but there’s speculation around the number of people all filing at once today. IRS spokesman Dean Patterson told the Washington Post that last year alone, 5 million people waited to file until the final day of tax season. This year, Kautter said that as of this morning, the IRS estimated that at least 30 million people still needed to do their taxes.

So basically, a ton of people procrastinated. If you know of any website that could handle 30 million people attempting to upload forms and file returns at once, definitely let us know because we’re stumped.

Regardless, you likely won’t be penalized for “filing late” if the issue isn’t resolved by midnight.

“Taxpayers would not be penalized because of a technical problem the IRS is having,” Kautter told the committee to relieve any fears of being punished for a system error. But if you’re really paranoid about getting into trouble, you can always file a six-month extension on the IRS website.

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